?
Yet know, its title[41] flatters you, not me; 1390
Yours be the praise to make my title good;
Mine, to bless Heaven, and triumph in your praise.
But since so pestilential your disease,
Though sovereign is the medicine I prescribe,
As yet, I'll neither triumph, nor despair:
But hope, ere long, my midnight dream will wake
Your hearts, and teach your wisdom--to be wise:
For why should souls immortal, made for bliss,
E'er wish (and wish in vain!) that souls could die?
What ne'er can die, oh! grant to live; and crown 1400
The wish, and aim, and labour of the skies;
Increase, and enter on the joys of heaven:
Thus shall my title pass a sacred seal,
Receive an imprimatur from above,
While angels shout--An Infidel Reclaimed!
To close, Lorenzo! spite of all my pains,
Still seems it strange, that thou should'st live for ever?
Is it less strange, that thou should'st live at all?
This is a miracle; and that no more.
Who gave beginning, can exclude an end. 1410
Deny thou art: then, doubt if thou shalt be.
A miracle with miracles enclosed,
Is man; and starts his faith at what is strange?
What less than wonders, from the Wonderful; 1414
What less than miracles, from God, can flow?
Admit a God--that mystery supreme!
That Cause uncaused! all other wonders cease;
Nothing is marvellous for Him to do:
Deny Him--all is mystery besides;
Millions of mysteries! each darker far,
Than that thy wisdom would, unwisely, shun.
If weak thy faith, why choose the harder side? 1422
We nothing know, but what is marvellous;
Yet what is marvellous, we can't believe.
So weak our reason, and so great our God,
What most surprises in the sacred page,
Or full as strange, or stranger, must be true.
Faith is not reason's labour, but repose.
To faith, and virtue, why so backward, man?
From hence:--the present strongly strikes us all; 1430
The future, faintly: can we, then, be men?
If men, Lorenzo! the reverse is right.
Reason is man's peculiar: Sense, the brute's.
The present is the scanty realm of Sense;
The future, Reason's empire unconfined:
On that expending all her godlike power,
She plans, provides, expatiates, triumphs, there;
There, builds her blessings; there, expects her praise;
And nothing asks of Fortune, or of men.