Edward Young

“ To faith, and virtue, why so backward, man?
From hence:—the present strongly strikes us all; 1430
The future, faintly: can we, then, be men?
If men, Lorenzo! the reverse is right.
Reason is man’s peculiar: Sense, the brute’s.
The present is the scanty realm of Sense;
The future, Reason’s empire unconfined:
On that expending all her godlike power,
She plans, provides, expatiates, triumphs, there;
There, builds her blessings; there, expects her praise;
And nothing asks of Fortune, or of men.
And what is Reason? Be she thus defined; 1440
Reason is upright stature in the soul. ”

“ Thy glorious immortality in man:
A theme for ever, and for all, of weight,
Of moment infinite! but relish’d most
By those who love Thee most, who most adore. 670
Nature, thy daughter, ever-changing birth
Of Thee the Great Immutable, to man
Speaks wisdom, is his oracle supreme;
And he who most consults her, is most wise.
Lorenzo, to this heavenly Delphos haste;
And come back all-immortal, all-divine:
Look nature through, ’tis revolution all;
All change; no death. Day follows night; and night
The dying day; stars rise, and set, and rise;
Earth takes th’ example. ”

“ So wept Lorenzo fair Clarissa’s fate;
Who gave that angel boy, on whom he doats;
And died to give him, orphan’d in his birth!
Not such, Narcissa, my distress for thee.
I’ll make an altar of thy sacred tomb, 590
To sacrifice to wisdom.—What wast thou?
“Young, gay, and fortunate!” Each yields a theme.
I’ll dwell on each, to shun thought more severe;
(Heaven knows I labour with severer still!) 594
I’ll dwell on each, and quite exhaust thy death.
A soul without reflection, like a pile
Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.
And, first, thy youth. What says it to grey hairs? ”

“ I’ll introduce Lorenzo to himself; 404
Pleasure and Pride (bad masters!) share our hearts.
As love of pleasure is ordain’d to guard
And feed our bodies, and extend our race;
The love of praise is planted to protect,
And propagate the glories of the mind.
What is it, but the love of praise, inspires,
Matures, refines, embellishes, exalts,
Earth’s happiness? From that, the delicate, 412
The grand, the marvellous, of civil life,
Want and convenience, underworkers, lay
The basis, on which love of glory builds.
Nor is thy life, O Virtue! less in debt
To praise, thy secret stimulating friend. ”

“ Indebted still, their highest rapture burns;
Short of its mark, defective, though divine.
Still more—this theme is man’s, and man’s alone;
Their vast appointments reach it not: they see
On earth a bounty not indulged on high;
And downward look for heaven’s superior praise! 440
First-born of ether! high in fields of light!
View man, to see the glory of your God!
Could angels envy, they had envied here;
And some did envy; and the rest, though gods,
Yet still gods unredeem’d (their triumphs man,
Tempted to weigh the dust against the skies) ,
They less would feel, though more adorn, my theme. ”

“ Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy! this group
Of bright ideas, flowers of paradise,
As yet unforfeit! in one blaze we bind,
Kneel, and present it to the skies; as all
We guess of heaven: and these were all her own.
And she was mine; and I was—was!—most blest!—
Gay title of the deepest misery! 100
As bodies grow more ponderous, robb’d of life;
Good lost weighs more in grief, than gain’d, in joy.
Like blossom’d trees o’erturn’d by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there;
Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love. ”

“ Wits smile, and thank me for my midnight dream.
How vicious hearts fume phrensy to the brain! 1370
Parts push us on to pride, and pride to shame;
Pert infidelity is Wit’s cockade,
To grace the brazen brow that braves the skies,
By loss of being, dreadfully secure.
Lorenzo! if thy doctrine wins the day,
And drives my dreams, defeated, from the field;
If this is all, if earth a final scene,
Take heed; stand fast; be sure to be a knave;
A knave in grain! ne’er deviate to the right:
Should’st thou be good—how infinite thy loss! 1380
Guilt only makes annihilation gain. 1381
Bless’d scheme! ”

“ To that bless’d son of foresight! lord of fate!
That awful independent on to-morrow!
Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past; 333
Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile;
Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly;
That common but opprobrious lot! past hours,
If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight,
If folly bounds our prospect by the grave,
All feeling of futurity benumb’d;
All god-like passion for eternals quench’d; 340
All relish of realities expired;
Renounced all correspondence with the skies;
Our freedom chain’d; quite wingless our desire ”

“ Through bless’d eternity’s long day; yet still,
Not more remote from sorrow, than from Him,
Whose lavish hand, whose love stupendous, pours
So much of Deity on guilty dust.
There, O my Lucia! may I meet thee there,
Where not thy presence can improve my bliss!
Affects not this the sages of the world?
Can nought affect them, but what fools them too?
Eternity, depending on an hour, 1360
Makes serious thought man’s wisdom, joy, and praise,
Nor need you blush (though sometimes your designs
May shun the light) at your designs on heaven:
Sole point! where over-bashful is your blame. ”

“ This child of dust—Man, all-immortal! hail;
Hail, Heaven! all lavish of strange gifts to man!
Thine all the glory; man’s the boundless bliss. 300
Where am I rapt by this triumphant theme?
On Christian joy’s exulting wing, above
Th’ Aonian mount?—Alas! small cause for joy!
What if to pain immortal? if extent
Of being, to preclude a close of woe?
Where, then, my boast of immortality?
I boast it still, though cover’d o’er with guilt;
For guilt, not innocence, his life he pour’d;
’Tis guilt alone can justify his death ”

“ Our nature such, ill choice ensures ill fate;
And hell had been, though there had been no God.
Dost thou not know, my new astronomer! 2010
Earth, turning from the sun, brings night to man?
Man, turning from his God, brings endless night;
Where thou canst read no morals, find no friend,
Amend no manners, and expect no peace.
How deep the darkness! and the groan, how loud!
And far, how far, from lambent are the flames!—
Such is Lorenzo’s purchase! such his praise!
The proud, the politic, Lorenzo’s praise!
Though in his ear, and levell’d at his heart,
I’ve half read o’er the volume of the skies. ”

“ Breathes hopes immortal, and affects the skies.
Religion! thou the soul of happiness;
And, groaning Calvary, of thee! there shine
The noblest truths; there strongest motives sting;
There sacred violence assaults the soul;
There, nothing but compulsion is forborne.
Can love allure us? or can terror awe? 580
He weeps!—the falling drop puts out the sun;
He sighs—the sigh earth’s deep foundation shakes.
If in his love so terrible, what then
His wrath inflamed? his tenderness on fire?
Like soft, smooth oil, outblazing other fires?
Can prayer, can praise avert it?—Thou, my all!
My theme! ”

“ And avarice is a virtue most divine.
Is faith a refuge for our happiness?
Most sure: and is it not for reason too?
Nothing this world unriddles, but the next.
Whence inextinguishable thirst of gain?
From inextinguishable life in man.
Man, if not meant, by worth, to reach the skies,
Had wanted wing to fly so far in guilt. 470
Sour grapes, I grant, ambition, avarice,
Yet still their root is immortality: 472
These its wild growths so bitter, and so base,
(Pain and reproach!) Religion can reclaim,
Refine, exalt, throw down their poisonous lee,
And make them sparkle in the bowl of bliss. ”

“ Each friend by fate snatch’d from us, is a plume
Pluck’d from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us stoop from our aërial heights, 287
And, damp’d with omen of our own decease,
On drooping pinions of ambition lower’d,
Just skim earth’s surface, ere we break it up,
O’er putrid earth to scratch a little dust,
And save the world a nuisance. Smitten friends
Are angels sent on errands full of love;
For us they languish, and for us they die:
And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain?
Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hovering shades,
Which wait the revolution in our hearts? ”

“ He drank long health, and virtue, to his friend; 580
His friend, who warm’d him more, who more inspired.
Friendship’s the wine of life; but friendship new
(Not such was his) is neither strong, nor pure.
O for the bright complexion, cordial warmth,
And elevating spirit, of a friend,
For twenty summers ripening by my side;
All feculence of falsehood long thrown down;
All social virtues rising in his soul;
As crystal clear; and smiling, as they rise!
Here nectar flows; it sparkles in our sight; 590
Rich to the taste, and genuine from the heart.
High-flavour’d bliss for gods! on earth how rare! ”

“ Art, genius, fortune, elevated power!
With various lustres these light up the world,
Which Death puts out, and darkens human race.” 463
I grant, Lorenzo! this indictment just:
The sage, peer, potentate, king, conqueror!
Death humbles these; more barbarous life, the man.
Life is the triumph of our mouldering clay;
Death, of the spirit infinite! divine!
Death has no dread, but what frail life imparts;
Nor life true joy, but what kind death improves. 470
No bliss has life to boast, till death can give
Far greater; life’s a debtor to the grave,
Dark lattice! letting in eternal day.
Lorenzo! ”

“ Eternal day! ’tis that enlightens all;
And all, by that enlighten’d, proves it sure.
Consider man as an immortal being,
Intelligible all; and all is great;
A crystalline transparency prevails,
And strikes full lustre through the human sphere:
Consider man as mortal, all is dark,
And wretched; Reason weeps at the survey.
The learn’d Lorenzo cries, “And let her weep,
Weak, modern Reason: ancient times were wise. 560
Authority, that venerable guide,
Stands on my part; the famed Athenian porch
(And who for wisdom so renown’d as they?)
Denied this immortality to man.” ”