Supporter fole of man above himself;
Ev'n in this night of frailty, change, and death, 555
She gives the foul a foul that acts a god.
Religion! Providence! an After-state!
Here is firm footing; here is folid rock!
This can fupport us; all is sea besides ;
Sinks under us; bestorms, and then devours.
His hand the good man fastens on the skies,
And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl.
As when a wretch, from thick, polluted air,
Darkness, and ftench, and fuffocating damps,
And dungeon-horrors, by kind fate, difcharg'd, 565
Climbs fome fair eminence, where ether pure
Surrounds him, and Elysian prospects rife,
His heart exults, his fpirits caft their load;
As if new-born, he triumphs in the change;
So joys the foul, when, from inglorious aims,
And fordid fweets, from feculence and froth
Of ties terreftrial, fet at large, the mounts
To Reafon's region, her own element,
Breathes hopes immortal, and affects the skies.
Religion! thou the foul of happiness;
And, groaning Calvary, of thee! There fhine
The nobleft truths; there ftrongeft motives fting;
There facred violence affaults the foul;
There, nothing but compulfion is forborn.
Can love allure us; or can terror awe?
He weeps!—the falling drop puts out the fun;
He fighs the figh earth's deep foundation shakes.
If in his love fo terrible, what then
His wrath inflamm'd? his tenderness on fire?
Like soft, smooth oil, outblazing other fires?
Can prayer, can praife, avert it?-Thou, my All!
My theme! my inspiration! and my crown!
My ftrength in age! my rife in low estate!
My foul's ambition, pleasure, wealth!—my world!
My light in darknefs! and my life in death!
My boaft through time! blifs through eternity!
Eternity, too short to speak thy praise !
Or fathom thy profound of love to man!
To man of men the meaneft, ev'n to me;
My facrifice! my God!-what things are thefe !
What then art Thou? by what name fhall I call Thee?
Knew I the name devout archangels ufe,
Devout archangels should the name enjoy,
By me unrival'd; thousands more sublime,
None half fo dear, as that, which, though unspoke, 600
Still glows at heart: O how omnipotence
Is loft in love! Thou great Philanthropist !
Father of angels! but the friend of man!
Like Jacob, fondeft of the younger born!
Thou, who didft fave him, snatch the fmoking brand 605
From out the flames, and quench it in thy blood!
How art thou pleas'd, by bounty to distress!
To make us groan beneath our gratitude,
Too big for birth! to favour, and confound;
To challenge, and to distance all return!
Of lavish love ftupendous heights to foar,
And leave praise panting in the distant vale!
Thy right, too great, defrauds thee of thy due;
And facrilegious our fublimeft fong.
But fince the naked will obtains thy fmile,
Beneath this monument of praife unpaid,
And future life fymphonious to my strain,
(That nobleft hymn to heaven!) for ever lie
Intomb'd my fear of death! and every fear,
The dread of every evil, but Thy frown.
Whom see I yonder, fo demurely smile?
Laughter a labour, and might break their rest.
Ye quietists, in homage to the skies!
Serene! of foft addrefs! who mildly make
An unobtrusive tender of your hearts,
Abhorring violence! who halt indeed;
But, for the bleffing, wreftle not with heaven!
Think you my fong too turbulent? too warm?
Are paffions, then, the pagans of the foul?
Reafon alone baptiz'd? alone ordain'd
To touch things facred? Oh for warmer still!
Guilt chills my zeal, and age benumbs my powers;
Oh for an humbler heart! and prouder fong!
Thou, my much-injur'd theme! with that foft eye
Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look 635
Compaffion to the coldnefs of my breaft;
And pardon to the winter in my ftrain.
ye cold-hearted, frozen, formalifts!
On fuch a theme, 'tis impious to be calm;
Paffion is reason, tranfport temper, here.
Shall heaven, which gave us ardour, and has fhewn
Her own for man fo ftrongly, not difdain
What smooth emollients in theology,
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Recumbent virtue's downy doctors, preach;
That profe of piety, a lukewarm praise ?
Rife odours sweet from incense uninflam`d?
Devotion, when lukewarm, is undevout;
But when it glows, its heat is ftruck to heaven;
To human hearts her golden harps.are ftrung;
High heaven's orchestra chaunts amen to man.
Hear I, or dream I hear, their distant strain,
Sweet to the foul, and tasting strong of heaven,
Soft-wafted on celestial pity's plume,
Through the vast spaces of the universe,
To chear me in this melancholy gloom?
Oh when will death (now ftingless), like a friend,
Admit me of their choir? O when will death
This mouldering, old, partition-wall throw down?
Give beings, one in nature, one abode?
Oh death divine! that giv'ft us to the skies!
Great future! glorious patron of the past,
And prefent! when fhall I thy fhrine adore?
From nature's continent, immensely wide,
Immensely bleft, this little ifle of life,
This dark, incarcerating colony,
Divides us. Happy day! that breaks our chain;
That manumits; that calls from exile home;
That leads to nature's great metropolis,
And re-admits us, through the guardian hand
Of elder brothers, to our Father's throne;
Who hears our Advocate, and, through his wounds Beholding man, allows that tender name.
'Tis this makes Christian triumph a command :
'Tis this makes joy a duty to the wise; ·
'Tis impious in a good man to be sad.
See thou, Lorenzo! where hangs all our hope?
Touch'd by the Cross, we live; or, more than die ;
That touch which touch'd not angels; more divine
Than that which touch'd confufion into form,
And darkness into glory; partial touch!
Ineffably pre-eminent regard!
Sacred to man, and fovereign through the whole
Long golden chain of miracles, which hangs
From heaven through all duration, and supports
In one illuftrious and amazing plan,
Thy welfare, nature! and thy God's renown;
That touch, with charm celeftial, heals the foul
Diseas'd, drives pain from guilt, lights life in death,
Turns earth to heaven, to heavenly thrones transforms
The ghaftly ruins of the mouldering tomb.
Doft afk me when? When he who dy'd returns;
Returns, how chang'd! Where then the man of woe?
In glory's terrors all the Godhead burns;
And all his courts, exhausted by the tide
Of deities triumphant in his train,
Leave a ftupendous folitude in heaven;
Replenish'd foon, replenish'd with increafe
Of pomp, and multitude; a radiant band
Of angels new; of angels from the tomb.
Is this by fancy thrown remote; and rise
Dark doubts between the promise and event?
I fend thee not to volumes for thy cure;
Read Nature; Nature is a friend to truth;
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