Is this by fancy thrown remote? and rife
Dark doubts between the promife, and event?
I fend thee not to volumes for thy cure;
Read nattire; nature is a friend to truth;
Nature is chriftian; preaches to mankind;
And bids dead matter aid us in our creed.
Haft thou ne'er feen the comet's flaming flight?
Th' illuftrious ftranger paffing, terror fheds
On gazing nations, from his fiery train,
Of length enormous; takes his ample round
Thro' depths of ether; coafts unnumber'd worlds,
Of more than folar glory; doubles wide
Heav'n's mighty cape; and then revifits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.
Thus, at the deftin'd period, fhall return
HE, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze:
And, with him, all our triumph o'er the tomb.
Nature is dumb on this important point;
Or hope precarious in low whisper breathes;
Faith Ipeaks aloud, diftinct; ev'n adders hear;
But turn, and dart into the dark again.

Faith builds a bridge across the gulph of death,
To break the fhock blind nature cannot fhun,
And lands thought smoothly on the farther fhore.
Death's terror is the mountain faith removes;
That mountain barrier between man and peace.
"Tis faith difarms deftruction; and abfolves
From ev'ry clam'rous charge the guiltless tomb.
Why 'difbelieve? Lorenzo!" Reafon bids,
"All-sacred reafon."-Hold her facred still;
Nor fhalt thou want a rival in thy flame:
All-facred reafon! fource, and foul, of all
Demanding praife, on earth, or earth above!
My heart is thine: deep in its inmost folds,
Live thou with life; live dearer of the two.
Wear I the bleffed crofs, by fortune ftamp'd

On paffive nature, before thought was born?
My birth's blind bigot! fir'd with local zeal!
No; reafon rebaptiz'd me when adult;
Weigh'd true and falfe in her impartial fcale;
My heart became the convert of my head;
And made that choice, which once was but my fate.
"On argument alone my faith is built :"
Reafon purfu'd is faith; and, unpursu'd
Where proof invites, 'tis reafon, then, no more :
And fuch our proof, that, or our faith is right,
Or reafon lies, and heav'n defign'd it wrong:
Abfolve we this? What, then, is blafphemy?
Fond as we are, and juftly fond of faith,
Reason, we grant, demands our first regard;
The mother honour'd, as the daughter dear.
Reason the root; fair faith is but the flower 3
The fading flow'r fhall die; but reafon lives
Immortal, as her Father in the skies.
When faith is virtue, reafon makes it fo.
Wrong not the Chriftian; think not reafon yours;
'Tis reafon our great Master holds fo dear;
'Tis reafon's injur'd rights his wrath resents
'Tis reafon's voice obey'd his glories crown;
To give loft reafon life, he pour'd his own:
Believe, and fhew the reafon of a man;
Believe, and tafte the pleasure of a god;
Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb.
Thro' reafon's wounds alone thy faith can die;
Which dying, tenfold terror gives to death,
And dips in venom his twice-mortal fting.

Learn hence what honours, what loud peans, due

To thofe, who push our antidote afide;
Those boafted friends to reason, and to man,
Whose fatal love stabs ev'ry joy, and leaves
Death's terror highten'd gnawing on his heart.
Thefe pompous fons of reafon idoliz'd,

And vilify'd at once; of reafon dead,
Then deify'd, as monarchs were of old;

What conduct plants proud laurels on their brow?
While love of truth thro' all their camp refounds,
They draw pride's curtain o'er the noon-tide ray,
Spike up their inch of reafon, on the point
Of philofophic wit, call'd argument;
And then, exulting in their taper, cry,
"Behold the fun;" and, Indian-like, adore.
Talk they of morals? O thou bleeding love!
Thou maker of new morals to mankind!
The grand morality is love of Thee.
As wife as Socrates, if fuch they were;
(Nor will they 'bate of that fublime renown)
As wife as Socrates, might justly stand
The definition of a modern fool.

A CHRISTIAN is the highest ftile of man.
And is there, who the bleffed crofs wipes off,
As a foul blot, from his difhonour'd brow?
If angels tremble, 'tis at fuch a fight:

The wretch they quit, defponding of their charge,
More ftruck with grief or wonder, who can tell?
Ye fold to fenfe! ye citizens of earth!
(For such alone the christian banner fly)
Know ye how wife your choice, how great your gain?
Behold the picture of earth's happiest man:
"He calls his wifh, it comes; he fends it back,
"And fays, he call'd another; that arrives,
"Meets the fame welcome; yet he still calls on;
"Till One calls him, who varies not his call,
"But holds him fast, in chains of darkness bound
"Till nature dies, and judgment fets him free;
"A freedom far lefs welcome than his chain."
But grant man happy; grant him happy long;
Add to life's highest prize her latest hour;

H

That hour, fo late, is nimble in approach,
That, like a poft, comes on in full career;
How fwift the fhuttle flies, that weaves thy fhroud!
Where is the fable of thy former years?

Thrown down the gulph of time; as far from Thee
As they had ne'er been thine; the day in hand,
Like a bird struggling to get loofe, is going;
Scarce now poffels'd, fo fuddenly 'tis gone;
And each swift moment fled, is death advanc'd
By ftrides as fwift: eternity is all;

And whofe eternity? Who triumphs there?
Bathing for ever in the font of blits!
For ever basking in the Deity

Lorenzo! who?-Thy confcience fhall reply..
O give it leave to fpeak; 'twill speak ere long,
Thy leave unafk'd: Lorenzo! hear it now,
While useful its advice, its accent mild.
By the great edict, the divine decree,
Truth is depofited with man's laft hour;
An honelt hour, and faithful to her truft;
Truth, eldest daughter of the Deity;

Truth of his council, when he made the worlds;
Nor lefs, when he fhall judge the worlds he made
Tho' filent long, and fleeping ne'er so sound,
Smother'd with errors, and oppreft with toys,
That heav'n-commiffion'd hour no fooner calls,
But from her cavern in the foul's abyfs,
Like him they fable under Aina whelm'd,
The goddess burfts in thunder, and in flame;
Loudly convinces, and feverely pains.
Dark dæmons I discharge, and hydra-ftings;
The keen vibration of bright truth-is hell:
Juft definition! tho' by fchools untaught.
Ye deaf to truth! perufe this parfon'd page,
And truft, for once, a prophet, and a priest;
*Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die."

NIGHT THE FIFTH..

THE

RELAPSE.

Humbly infcribed to the Right Hon.
The EARL of LICHFIELD.

L

ORENZO! to recriminate is juft. Fondness for fame is avarice of air. I grant the man is vain, who writes for praife. Praise no man e'er deserv'd, who fought no more. As just thy fecond charge. I grant the muse Has often blush'd at her degen'rate fons, Retain'd by fenfe to plead her filthy cause; To raife the low, to magnify the mean, And fubtilize the grofs into refin'd: As if to magic numbers pow'rful charm 'Twas giv'n, to make a civet of their fong Obscene, and fweeten ordure to perfume. Wit, a true pagan, deifies the brute, And lifts our fwine-enjoyments from the mire. The fact notorious, nor obfcure the cause, We wear the chains of pleafure, and of pride; These fhare the man; and these distract him too; Draw diff'rent ways, and clafh in their commands.