leasure, and the love of gain!
Canst thou suspect that these, which make the soul
The slave of earth, should own her heir of heaven?
Canst thou suspect what makes us disbelieve
Our immortality, should prove it sure?
First, then, Ambition summon to the bar.
Ambition's shame, extravagance, disgust 338
And inextinguishable nature, speak.
Each much deposes; hear them in their turn.
Thy soul, how passionately fond of fame!
How anxious, that fond passion to conceal!
We blush, detected in designs on praise,
Though for best deeds, and from the best of men:
And why? Because immortal. Art divine
Has made the body tutor to the soul;
Heaven kindly gives our blood a moral flow;
Bids it ascend the glowing cheek, and there
Upbraid that little heart's inglorious aim,
Which stoops to court a character from man; 350
While o'er us, in tremendous judgment sit
Far more than man, with endless praise, and blame.
Ambition's boundless appetite outspeaks
The verdict of its shame. When souls take fire
At high presumptions of their own desert,
One age is poor applause; the mighty shout,
The thunder by the living few begun,
Late time must echo; worlds unborn resound.
We wish our names eternally to live:
Wild dream! which ne'er had haunted human thought,
Had not our natures been eternal too. 361
Instinct points out an interest in hereafter;
But our blind reason sees not where it lies;
Or, seeing, gives the substance for the shade.
Fame is the shade of immortality,
And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught,
Contemn'd; it shrinks to nothing in the grasp.
Consult th' ambitious, 'tis ambition's cure.
"And is this all?" cried Caesar at his height,
Disgusted. This third proof Ambition brings 370
Of immortality. The first in fame.
Observe him near, your envy will abate: 372
Shamed at the disproportion vast, between
The passion and the purchase, he will sigh
At such success, and blush at his renown.
And why? Because far richer prize invites
His heart; far more illustrious glory calls:
It calls in whispers, yet the deafest hear.
And can Ambition a fourth proof supply?
It can, and stronger than the former three; 380
Yet quite o'erlook'd by some reputed wise.
Though disappointments in ambition