know her, and the many shun,)
And check'd the reins of life.
"I will repay thee in a holier land--
Give thou to me thy youth;
All I can grant thee lies in this command."
I heard, and, trusting in a holier land,
Gave my young joys to Truth.

"Give me thy Laura--give me her whom Love
To thy heart's core endears;
The usurer, Bliss, pays every grief--_above_!"
I tore the fond shape from the bleeding love,
And gave--albeit with tears!
"What bond can bind the Dead to life once more?
Poor fool," (the scoffer cries;)
"Gull'd by the despot's hireling lie, with lore
That gives for Truth a shadow;--life is o'er
When the delusion dies!"
"Tremblest thou," hiss'd the serpent-herd in scorn,
"Before the vain deceit?
Made holy but by custom, stale and worn,
The phantom Gods, of craft and folly born--
The sick world's solemn cheat?
What is this Future underneath the stone?
But for the veil that hides, revered alone;
The giant shadow of our Terror, thrown
On Conscience' troubled glass--
Life's lying likeness--in the dreary shroud
Of the cold sepulchre--
Embalm'd by Hope--Time's mummy--which the proud
Delirium, driv'ling through thy reason's cloud,
Calls '_Immortality!_'
Giv'st thou for hope (corruption proves its lie)
Sure joy that most delights us?
Six thousand years has Death reign'd tranquilly!--
Nor one corpse come to whisper those who die,
What _after_ death requites us!"
Along Time's shores I saw the Seasons fly;
Nature herself, interr'd
Among her blooms, lay dead; to those who die
There came no corpse to whisper Hope! Still I
Clung to the Godlike Word.
Judge!--All my joys to thee did I resign,
All that did most delight ne;
And now I kneel--man's scorn I scorn'd--thy shrine
Have I adored--Thee only held divine--
Requiter, now requite me!
"For all my sons an equal love I know,
And equal each condition,"
Answer'd an unseen Genius--"See below,
Two flowers, for all who rightly seek them, blow--
The HOPE and the FRUITION.
He who has pluck'd the one, resign'd must see
The sister's forfeit bloom:
Let Unbelief enjoy--Belief must be
All to the chooser;--the world's history
Is the world's judgment doom.
Thou hast had HOPE--in thy belief thy