Now wakes; is on the wing: and where, oh! where,
Will the swarm settle?--When the trumpet's call,
As sounding brass, collects us, round Heaven's throne
Conglobed, we bask in everlasting day, 941
(Paternal splendour!) and adhere for ever. 942
Had not the soul this outlet to the skies,
In this vast vessel of the universe,
How should we gasp, as in an empty void!
How in the pangs of famish'd hope expire?
How bright my prospect shines! how gloomy, thine!
A trembling world! and a devouring God!
Earth, but the shambles of Omnipotence!
Heaven's face all stain'd with causeless massacres 950
Of countless millions, born to feel the pang
Of being lost. Lorenzo! can it be?
This bids us shudder at the thoughts of life.
Who would be born to such a phantom world,
Where nought substantial but our misery?
Where joy (if joy) but heightens our distress,
So soon to perish, and revive no more?
The greater such a joy, the more it pains.
A world, so far from great, (and yet how great
It shines to thee!) there's nothing real in it; 960
Being, a shadow; consciousness, a dream!
A dream, how dreadful! universal blank
Before it, and behind! Poor man, a spark
From non-existence struck by wrath divine,
Glittering a moment, nor that moment sure,
'Midst upper, nether, and surrounding night,
His sad, sure, sudden, and eternal tomb!
Lorenzo! dost thou feel these arguments?
Or is there nought but vengeance can be felt?
How hast thou dared the Deity dethrone? 970
How dared indict Him of a world like this?
If such the world, creation was a crime;
For what is crime, but cause of misery?
Retract, blasphemer! and unriddle this,
Of endless arguments above, below,
Without us, and within, the short result-- 976
"If man's immortal, there's a God in heaven."
But wherefore such redundancy? such waste
Of argument? One sets my soul at rest!
One obvious, and at hand, and, oh!--at heart.
So just the skies, Philander's life so pain'd,
His heart so pure; that, or succeeding scenes
Have palms to give, or ne'er had he been born. 983
"What an old tale is this!" Lorenzo cries.--
I grant this argument is old; but truth
No years impair; and had not this been true,
Thou never hadst despised it for its age.