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A flaming sword to guard the tree of life.
By that unawed, in life's most smiling hour,
The good man would repine; would suffer joys,
And burn impatient for his promised skies.
The bad, on each punctilious pique of pride,
Or gloom of humour, would give rage the rein;
Bound o'er the barrier, rush into the dark, 432
And mar the schemes of Providence below.
What groan was that, Lorenzo?--Furies! rise,
And drown in your less execrable yell
Britannia's shame. There took her gloomy flight,
On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul,
Blasted from hell, with horrid lust of death;
Thy friend, the brave, the gallant Altamont,
So call'd, so thought--and then he fled the field. 440
Less base the fear of death, than fear of life.
O Britain, infamous for suicide!
An island in thy manners! far disjoin'd
From the whole world of rationals beside!
In ambient waves plunge thy polluted head,
Wash the dire stain, nor shock the Continent.
But thou be shock'd, while I detect the cause
Of self-assault, expose the monster's birth,
And bid abhorrence hiss it round the world.
Blame not thy clime, nor chide the distant sun; 450
The sun is innocent, thy clime absolved:
Immoral climes kind nature never made.
The cause I sing, in Eden might prevail,
And proves, it is thy folly, not thy fate.
The soul of man (let man in homage bow,
Who names his soul), a native of the skies!
High-born, and free, her freedom should maintain,
Unsold, unmortgaged for earth's little bribes.
Th' illustrious stranger, in this foreign land, 459
Like strangers, jealous of her dignity,
Studious of home, and ardent to return,
Of earth suspicious, earth's enchanted cup
With cool reserve light touching, should indulge
On immortality her godlike taste;
There take large draughts, make her chief banquet there.
But some reject this sustenance divine;
To beggarly vile appetites descend;
Ask alms of earth, for guests that came from heaven!
Sink into slaves; and sell, for present hire,
Their rich reversion, and (what shares its fate) 470
Their native freedom, to the prince who sways
This nether world. And when his payments fail,
When his foul basket gorges them no more,
Or their pall'd palates loathe the basket full;
Are instantly, with wild demoniac rage,
For breakin