oney for my stings?
If needful to the selfish schemes of Heaven
To sting us sore, why mock'd our misery?
Why this so sumptuous insult o'er our heads?
Why this illustrious canopy display'd?
Why so magnificently lodged Despair?
At stated periods, sure returning, roll 790
These glorious orbs, that mortals may compute
Their length of labours, and of pains; nor lose
Their misery's full measure?--Smiles with flowers,
And fruits, promiscuous, ever-teeming earth,
That man may languish in luxurious scenes,
And in an Eden mourn his wither'd joys?
Claim earth and skies man's admiration, due
For such delights! Blest animals! too wise
To wonder, and too happy to complain!
"Our doom decreed demands a mournful scene: 800
Why not a dungeon dark, for the condemn'd?
Why not the dragon's subterranean den,
For man to howl in? Why not his abode
Of the same dismal colour with his fate?
A Thebes, a Babylon, at vast expence
Of time, toil, treasure, art, for owls and adders,
As congruous as, for man, this lofty dome,
Which prompts proud thought, and kindles high desire;
If, from her humble chamber in the dust, 809
While proud thought swells, and high desire inflames,
The poor worm calls us for her inmates there;
And, round us, Death's inexorable hand
Draws the dark curtain close; undrawn no more.
"Undrawn no more!--Behind the cloud of death,
Once I beheld a sun; a sun which gilt
That sable cloud, and turn'd it all to gold:
How the grave's alter'd! fathomless, as hell!
A real hell to those who dreamt of heaven.
Annihilation! how it yawns before me!
Next moment I may drop from thought, from sense, 820
The privilege of angels, and of worms,
An outcast from existence! and this spirit,
This all-pervading, this all-conscious soul,
This particle of energy divine,
Which travels nature, flies from star to star,
And visits gods, and emulates their powers,
For ever is extinguish'd. Horror! death!
Death of that death I fearless once survey'd!--
When horror universal shall descend,
And heaven's dark concave urn all human race, 830
On that enormous, unrefunding tomb,
How just this verse! this monumental sigh!"

Beneath the lumber of demolish'd worlds,
Deep in the rubbish of the general wreck,
Swept ignominious to the commo