And unburied remain
Inglorious on the plain !
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew!
Behold! how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glittering temples of their hostile gods!
The princes applaud, with furious joy;
And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy';
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey!
And, like another Helen fired—another Troy.
BUT when the powers descending swell'd the fight,
Then tumult rose, fierce rage, and pale affright;
Now through the trembling shores Minerva calls,
And now she thunders from the Grecian walls.
Mars hov'ring o'er his Troy, his terror shrouds,
In gloomy tempests, and a night of clouds;
Now through each Trojan heart he fury pours,
With voice divine, from Ilion's topmost towers.
Above, the Sire of Gods his thunder rolls,
And peals on peals redoubled rend the poles.
Beneath, stern Neptune shakes the solid ground,
The forests wave, the mountains nod around:
Through all her summits tremble Ida's woods,
And from their sources boil her hundred floods.
Troy's turrets totter on the rocking plain,
And the toss'd navies beat the heaving main.
Deep in the dismal region of the dead,
Th' infernal monarch rears his infernal head,
Leapt from his throne, lest Neptune's arms should lay
His dark dominions open to the day;
And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes,
Abhorr'd by men and dreadful e’en to gods.
Such wars th' immortals wage; such horrors rend
The world's vast concave, when the gods contend.
ALL are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent;
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Cease then, nor order imperfection name :
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. - In this or any other sphere,
Secure to be as bless'd as thou canst bear :
Safe in the hand of one disposing power,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
PRESENT CONDITION OF MAN VINDICATED.
HEAV'N from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know;
Or who could suffer Being here below :
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n :
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest :
The soul, uneasy, and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n,
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste;
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire ;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there :
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the God of God.
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels, men rebel :
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of ORDER, sins against th' Eternal Cause.
WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possess'd beyond the Muse's painting.
By turns, they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound;
And as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each, for madness ruled the hour,
Would prove his own expressive power.
First, Fear, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewilder'd laid :
And back recoil'd he knew not why,
Even at the sound himself had made.
Next, Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire;
In lightnings own'd his secret stings: In one rude clash he struck the lyre —
And swept with hurried hands the strings.
With woful measures, wan Despair
Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air; 'Twas sad, by fits - by starts 'twas wild.
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