vive: and am I fond of life,
Who scarce can think it possible, I live? 130
Alive by miracle! or, what is next,
Alive by Mead! if I am still alive,
Who long have buried what gives life to live,
Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought.
Life's lee is not more shallow, than impure,
And vapid; sense and reason show the door,
Call for my bier, and point me to the dust.
O thou great arbiter of life and death!
Nature's immortal, immaterial Sun!
Whose all-prolific beam late call'd me forth 140
From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay
The worm's inferior, and, in rank, beneath
The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,
And triumph in existence; and could know
No motive, but my bliss; and hast ordain'd
A rise in blessing! with the patriarch's joy,
Thy call I follow to the land unknown;
I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust;
Or life, or death, is equal; neither weighs: 150
All weight in this--O let me live to thee!
Though nature's terrors thus may be repress'd;
Still frowns grim Death; guilt points the tyrant's spear.
And whence all human guilt? From death forgot.
Ah me! too long I set at nought the swarm
Of friendly warnings, which around me flew; 156
And smiled, unsmitten: small my cause to smile!
Death's admonitions, like shafts upwards shot,
More dreadful by delay, the longer ere
They strike our hearts, the deeper is their wound;
O think how deep, Lorenzo! here it stings:
Who can appease its anguish? How it burns! 162
What hand the barb'd, envenom'd thought can draw?
What healing hand can pour the balm of peace?
And turn my sight undaunted on the tomb?
With joy,--with grief, that healing hand I see;
Ah! too conspicuous! it is fix'd on high.
On high?--What means my phrensy? I blaspheme;
Alas! how low! how far beneath the skies!
The skies it form'd; and now it bleeds for me-- 170
But bleeds the balm I want--yet still it bleeds;
Draw the dire steel--ah, no! the dreadful blessing
What heart or can sustain, or dares forego?
There hangs all human hope: that nail supports
The falling universe: that gone, we drop;
Horror receives us, and the dismal wish
Creation had been smother'd in her birth--
Darkness his curtain, and his bed the dust;