The impetuous nerve of passion urges on The native weight and energy of things.
Yet more; her honours where no beauty claims Nor shows of good the thirsty sense allure, From passion's power alone our nature holds Essential pleasure. Passion's fierce illapse Rouses the mind's whole fabric; with supplies Of daily impulse keeps the elastic powers Intensely pois'd, and polishes anew
By that collision all the fine machine: Else rust would rise, and foulness, by degrees Encumbering, choke at last what heaven design'd For ceaseless motion and a round of toil. -But say, does every passion thus to man Administer delight? That name indeed Becomes the rosy breath of love; becomes The radiant smiles of joy, the applauding hand Of admiration: but the bitter shower That sorrow sheds upon a brother's grave, But the dumb palsy of nocturnal fear, Or those consuming fires that gnaw the heart Of panting indignation, find we there
To move delight?-Then listen while my tongue The unalter'd will of heaven with faithful awe Reveals; what old Harmodius, wont to teach My early age; Harmodius who had weigh'd Within his learned mind whate'er the schools Of wisdom, or thy lonely-whispering voice, O faithful nature! dictate of the laws. Which govern and support this mighty frame Of universal being. Oft the hours
From morn to eve have stolen unmark'd away, While mute attention hung upon his lips, As thus the sage his awful tale began.
'Twas in the windings of an ancient wood, When spotless youth with solitude resigns To sweet philosophy the studious day, What time pale autumn shades the silent eve, Musing I rov'd. Of good and evil much, And much of mortal man my thought revolv'd When starting full on fancy's gushing eye The mournful image of Parthenia's fate,
That hour, O long belov'd and long deplor'd! When blooming youth, nor gentlest wisdom's arts, Nor Hymen's honours gather'd for thy brow, Nor all thy lover's, all thy father's tears Avail'd to snatch thee from the cruel grave; Thy agonizing looks, thy last farewell Struck to the inmost feeling of my soul As with the hand of death. At once the shade More horrid nodded o'er me, and the winds With hoarser murmuring shook the branches. As midnight storms, the scene of human things Appear'd before me; deserts, burning sands, Where the parch'd adder dies; the frozen south; And desolation blasting all the west
With rapine and with murder, tyrant power, Here sits enthron'd with blood; the baleful charms Of superstition there infect the skies,
And turn the sun to horror. Gracious Heaven! What is the life of man? Or cannot these,
Not these portents thy awful will suffice?
That, propagated thus beyond their scope, They rise to act their cruelties anew In my afflicted bosom, thus decreed The universal sensitive of pain,
The wretched heirs of evils not its own! Thus I impatient; when, at once effus'd,
A flashing torrent of celestial day
Burst through the shadowy void. With slow descent A purple cloud came floating through the sky, And pois'd at length within the circling trees, Hung obvious to my view, till opening wide Its lucid orb, a more than human form Emerging lean'd majestic o'er my head, And instant thunder shook the conscious grove. Then melted into air the liquid cloud, Then all the shining vision stood reveal'd, A wreath of palm his ample forehead bound, And o'er his shoulder, mantling to his knee, Flow'd the transparent robe, around his waist Collected with a radiant zone of gold Ethereal; there in mystic signs engrav'd, I read his office high and sacred name,
Genius of human kind. Appall'd I gaz'd The godlike presence; for athwart his brow Displeasure, temper'd with a mild concern, Look'd down reluctant on me, and his words Like distant thunders broke the murmuring air. Vain are thy thoughts, O child of mortal birth! And impotent thy tongue. Is thy short span Capacious of this universal frame?
Thy wisdom all-sufficient? Thou, alas! Dost thou aspire to judge between the Lord Of nature and his works? to lift thy voice Against the sovereign order he decreed, All good and lovely? to blaspheme the bands Of tenderness innate and social love,
Holiest of things! by which the general orb Of being, as by adamantine links, Was drawn to perfect union and sustain'd From everlasting? Hast thou felt the pangs Of softening sorrow, of indignant zeal So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish The ties of nature broken from thy frame; That so thy selfish, unrelenting heart Might cease to mourn its lot, no longer then, The wretched heir of evils not its own? O fair benevolence of generous minds! O man by nature form'd for all mankind!
He spoke; abash'd and silent I remain'd, As conscious of my tongue's offence, and aw'd Before his presence, though my secret soul Disdain'd the imputation. On the ground I fix'd my eyes; till from his airy couch He stoop'd sublime, and touching with his hand My dazzling forehead, Raise thy sight, he cry'd, And let thy sense convince thy erring tongue.
I look'd, and lo! the former scene was chang'd; For verdant alleys and surrounding trees, A solitary prospect, wide and wild,
Rush'd on my senses. 'Twas an horrid pile Of hills and many a shaggy forest mix'd, With many a sable cliff and glittering stream. Aloft recumbent o'er the hanging ridge,
The brown woods way'd; while ever trickling springs
Wash'd from the naked roots of oak and pine The crumbling soil; and still at every fall Down the steep windings of the channel'd rock, Remurmuring rush'd the congregrated floods, With hoarser inundation; till at last
They reach'd a grassy plain, which from the skirts Of that high desert spread her verdant lap, And drank the gushing moisture, where confin'd In one smooth current, o'er the lilied vale Clearer than glass it flow'd. Autumnal spoils Luxuriant spreading to the rays of morn,
Blush'd o'er the cliffs, whose half-encircling mound As in a sylvan theatre enclos'd
That flowery level. On the river's brink I spy'd a fair pavilion, which diffus'd Its floating umbrage 'mid the silver shade Of osiers. Now the western sun reveal'd Between two parting cliffs his golden orb, And pour'd across the shadow of the hills, On rocks and floods, a yellow stream of light That cheer'd the solemn scene. My listening powers Were aw'd, and every thought in silence hung, And wondering expectation. Then the voice Of that celestial power, the mystic show Declaring, thus my deep attention call'd.
Inhabitant of earth, to whom is given The gracious ways of providence to learn, Receive my sayings with a steadfast ear- Know then, the sovereign spirit of the world, Though, self-collected from eternal time, Within his own deep essence he beheld The bounds of true felicity complete; Yet by immense benignity inclin'd To spread around him that primeval joy Which fill'd himself, he rais'd his plastic arm, And sounded through the hollow depth of space The strong, creative mandate. Straight arose These heavenly orbs, the glad abodes of life Effusive kindled by his breath divine
Through endless forms of being. Each inhal'd From him its portion of the vital flame,
In measure such, that, from the wide complex Of co-existent orders, one might rise, One order, all involving and entire. He too beholding in the sacred light Of his essential reason, all the shapes Of swift contingence, all successive ties Of action propagated through the sum Of possible existence, he at once, Down the long series of eventful time, So fix'd the dates of being, so dispos'd, To every living soul of every kind The field of motion and the hour of rest, That all conspir'd to his supreme design, To universal good: with full accord Answering the mighty model he had chosen, The best and fairest of unnumber'd worlds That lay from everlasting in the store Of his divine conceptions. Nor content, By one exertion of creative power His goodness to reveal; through every age, Through every moment up the tract of time His parent-hand with ever-new increase Of happiness and virtue has adorn'd
The vast harmonious frame: his parent hand, From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore, To men, to angels, to celestial minds, For ever leads the generations on
To higher scenes of being; while supply'd From day to day with his enlivening breath, Inferior orders in succession rise To fill the void below. As flame ascends, As bodies to their proper centre move, As the pois'd ocean to the attracting moon Obedient swells, and every headlong stream Devolves its winding waters to the main; So all things which have life aspire to God, The sun of being, boundless, unimpair'd, Centre of souls! Nor does the faithful voice Of nature cease to prompt their eager steps Aright; nor is the care of heaven withheld From granting to the task proportion'd aid;
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