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Hear that, Lorenzo! nor be wile to-morrow. 1380
Hafte, Hafte! A man, by nature, is in hafte;
For who fail anfver for another hour?
'Tis highly prudent, to make one sure friend ;
And that thou canst not do, this fide the fkies.

Ye fons of earth! (nor willing to be more!) 1385

[This is the most indulgence can afford :--:
"Thy ruifdem all ean do, but---make thee wife." 1415
Nor think this cenfure is fevere on thee:

Satan thy mafter, I dare call a dunce.

NIGHT THE NINTH AND LAST.

THE CONSOLATION.

CONTAINING, AMONG OTHER THINGS,

I. A Moral Survey of the Nocturnal Heavens. 11. A Night-Addrefs to the DEITY.

HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE,

One of His Majefty's Principal Secretaries of
State.

"---Fatis contraria fata rependens." VIRG.

Since verfe you think from prieftcraft fomewhat As when a traveller, a long day past

free,

Thus, in an age fo gay, the Mufe plain truths
(Truths, which, at church, you might have heard
in profe)

1390

Has ventur'd into light; well-pleas'd the verfe
Should be forgot, if you the truths retain ;
And crown her with your welfare, not your
praife.

1395

But praife the need not fear: I fee my fate;
And headlong leap, like Curtius, down the gulph.
Since many an ample volume, mighty teme,
Muft die; and die unwept; O thou minute,
Devored page! go forth among thy foes;
Go nobly proud of martyrdom for truth,
And die a double death: mankind, incens'd,
Denies thee long to live: nor fhalt thon reft
When thou art dead; in Stygian' fhades arraign'd

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By Lucifer, as traitor to his throne;
And bold blafphemer of his friend---the world ;
The world, whofe legions coft him flender pay,
And volunteers around his bauner fwarm;
Prudent, as Pruffia, in her zeal for Gaul!
"Are all, then, fools?"Lorenzo cries.---Yes,

all,

But fuch as hold thie doctrine (new to thee); "The mother of true wifdom is the will;" The nobleft intelect, a fool without it.

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In painful fearch of what he cannot find,
At night's approach, content with the next cot,
There ruminates, awhile, his labour loft ;
Then chears his heart with what his fate afords,
And chaunts his fonnet to deceive the time,
Till the due feafon calls him to repofe:
Thus I, long-travel'd in the ways of men,
And dancing, with the reft, the giddy maze,
Where difappointment frailes at hope's career;
Warn'd by the languor of life's evening ray,
At length have hous'd me in an humble fhed;
Where, future wandering banish'd from my
thought,

10

And waiting, patient, the (weet hour of reft,
I chace the moments with a ferious fong.
Song fooths our pains; and age has pains to footh.
When age, care, crime, and friends embrac'd
at heart,

Torn from my breeding breaft and death's dark
fhade,

Which hovers o'er me, quench th' ethereal fire;
Canft thou, O Night! indulge one labour more? 20
One labour more indulge! then fleep, my flrain!
Till, haply, weak'd by Raphael's golden lyre,
Where night, death, age, care, crime, and forrow,
ceafe;

To bear a part in everlafting lays:
Though far, far higher fet, in aim, I truft,
World-wifdem much has done, and more may do, Symphonious to this humble prelude here.

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Has not the Mule afferted pleasures pure,
Like those above; exploding other joys?
Weigh what was urg'd, Lorenzo! fairly weigh;
And tell me, hall thou cause to triumph ftill? 30

Zz2

I think, thou wilt forbear a beaft fo bold.
But if, beneath the favour of mistake,
Thy imile's fincere; not more fincere can be
Lorenzo's fimile, than my compaflion for him.
The fick in body call for aid; the fick
In mind are covetous of more diteate;
And when at worst, they dream themfelves quite
well.

To know ourselves difezs'd, is half our cure.
When nature's blush by cufom is wip'd off,
And con cience, deaden'd by repeated ftrokes,
Has into manners naturaliz'd our crimes;
The curfe of curfes is, our curte to love;
To triumph in the blackness of our guilt
(As Indians glory in the deepeftet),
And throw afide our fenfes with our feace.

But grant no guilt, no fhame, no leafl alloy;
Grant toy and glory quite unfully'd fhone ;
Yet, ftill, it ill de'erves Lorenzo's heart.
No joy, no glory, glitters in thy fight,
But, through the thin partition of an hour,
1 fee its fables wove by definy;

35

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Lorenzo fuch the glories of the world
What is the word itfelf? Thy world---2 grave.
Where is the duft that has not been alive?
The pade, the plough, difturb our ancestors;
From human mould we resp our deity bread.
The 1 be around earth's hollow furface fakes, 95
And is the cjeling of her fleeping fons.
O'er devaftation we blind revels keep:
Whale bury'd towns fupport the dancer's heel.
The moist of human frame the fun exhales;

40 Winds featter through the mighty void the dry;

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Nor man alone; his breathing bull expires, His tomb is mortal; empires die: where now, The Roman? Greek? They talk, an empty name! 50 Yet few regard them in this useful light; Though half our learning is their epitaph. When down thy vale, unlock'd' by midnight thought,

And that in orrow bury'd; this, in fhame;
While bowling furies ring the doleful knell ;
And confcreme, now to foft thou fcarce canft

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That loves to wander in thy funless realms,
O death! I ftretch my view: what visions rife!
What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine!
In wither'd laurels glide before my fight!
With human agitation, roll along

In unfubftantial images of air!

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The melancholy gloft of dead renown pro-With penitential aspect, as they pals, Whi pering faint echoes of the world's applante,

A truce, and hung his fated lance on high?
'Tis brandifh'd fill; nor fhall the prefent year
Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or Spread of iceble life a thinner fall.

But needless monuments to wake the thought;
Life's gayeft fcenes fpeak man's mortality;
Though in a ftyle more florid, full as plain,
As mausoleums, tyramids, and tombs

What are our nobleft ornaments, but deaths
Turn'd flatterers of life, in paint or marble,
T'he well-ftain'd canvas, or the featur'd ftone?
Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene.
Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.

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6c All point at earth, and hifs at human pride,
The wildom of the quife, and prancings of the

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Profef diverfions!---cannot thefe efcape?"
Far from it: thefe prefent us with a throud;
And talk of death, like garlands o'er a grave.
As fome bold plunderers, for bury'd wealth,
We ranfack tombs for paftime; from the duft
Call up the fleeping hero ;- bid him tread
The scene for our amufement: how like gods
We fit; and, wrapt in immortality,
Shed generous tears on wretches born to die;
Their fate deploring, to forget our own!
What all the pomps and triumphs of our
lives,

But legacies in bloffom? Our lean foil,
Luxuriant grown, and rank in vanities,
From friends interr'd beneath; a rich manure!
Like other worms, we banquet on the dead;
Like other worms, fhall we crawl

know

Our prefent frailties, or approaching fate?

on,

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great.

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But, O Lorenzo far the reft above,
Of ghafly nature, and enormous fize,
One form affaults my fight, and chills my blood,
And thakes my frame. Of one departed world
I fee the mighty fhadow: oozy wreath
And dilmal fea-weed crown her: o'er her urn
Reclin'd, the weeps her defolated realms,
And bloated fons; and, weeping, prophefies
Arother's diffolution, foen, in flames.
But, like Caffandra, prophefies in vain :
In vain, to many; not, I truft, to thee.
For, know'ft theu not, or art thou, lath to
know,

The great decree, the counsel of the skies?
Deluge and conflagration, dreadful powers!
Prime minifters of vengeance! chain'd in caves
Diftin&t, apart the giant furies roar ;
Apart; or, fuch their horrid rage for ruin,
In mutual conflict would they rife, and wage
Eternal war, till one was quite devour'd.
But not for this, ordain'd their boundless rage;
When heaven's inferior inftruments of wrath,
War, famine, peftilence, are found too weak
To fcourge a world for her enormous crimes,
Thefe are let loofe, alternate: down they rush,
Swift and tempeftuous, from the eternal throne,
With irrefiftible commiffion arm'd,
The world, in vain corrected, to destroy,
And eafe creation of the fhocking (cene.

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150

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Seeft thou, Lorenzo! what depends on man?
The fate of nature; as for man, her birth.
Earth's actors change earth's tranfitory fcenes,
And make creation groan with human guilt.
How muft it groan, in a new deluge whelm'd,
But not of waters! at the deftin'd hour,
By the loud trumpet fummon'd to the charge,
See, all the formidable fons of fire,
Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play

Their various engines; all at once difgorge
Their blazing magazines; and take, by storm,
This poor terreftrial citadel of man.

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Amazing period.! when each mountain-height Out-burns Veluvius; rocks eternal pour Their melted mals, as rivers once they pour'd; Stars rufh; and final ruin fiercely drives Her plowfhare o'er creation !---while aloft, More than aftonishment! if more can be! Far other firmament than e'er was feen, Than e'er was thought by man! far other ftars! Stars animate, that govern thefe of fire; Far other fun !---A fun, O how unlike The Babe at Bethlem! how unlike the Man, That groan'd on Calvary !---Yet He it is; That man of torrows! O how chang'd! porap!

175 what

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In grandeur terrible, all heaven descends!
And gods, ambitious, triumph in his train.
A fwift archangel, with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds, that darken and difgrace
The scene divine, fweeps ftars and funs afide.
And
all dross remov❜d, heaven's own pure
day,

now,

Full on the confines of our æther, flames.
While (dreadful contraft) far, how far beneath!
Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing feas, 185
And forms fulphureous: her voracious jaws
Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey.
Lorenzo! welcome to this fcene; the laft
In nature's courfe; the firft in wisdom's thought.
This trikes, if aught can flrike thee; this awakes
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The moft fupine; this fnatches man from death.
Roufe, roufe, Lorenzo, then, and follow me,
Where truth, the most momentous man can hear,
Loud calls my foul, and ardour wings her flight.
I find my infpiration in my theme;
The grandeur of my fubject is my Mufe.

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At midnight, when mankind is wrapt in feace, And worldly fancy feeds on golden dreams; To give more dread to man's moft dreadful hour, At midnight, 'tis prefum'd, this pomp will burst

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Great day of dread, decifion, and despair!
At thought of thee, each fublunary wish
Lets go its eager grafp, and drops the world;
And catches at each reed of hope in heaven.
At thought of thee !---and art thou abfent then? 225
Lorenzo! no; 'tis here; it is begun ;-

Already is begun the grand affize,

-

In thee, in all: deputed conscience scales
The dread tribunal, and foreftalls our doom;

Foreftalls; and, by foreftalling, proves it fure. 230
Why on himself fhould man void judgment pass?
Is idle nature laughing at her fons?

Who confcience fent, her fentence will fupport,
And God above affert that God in man.
Thrice happy they! that enter now the court 235
Heaven opens in their bofoms: but, how rare,
Ah me! that magnanimity, how rare!
What hero, like the man who ftands himself;
Who dares to meet his naked heart alone;
Who hears intrepid, the full charge it brings, 240
Refolv'd to filence future murmurs there?
The coward flies; and, flying, is undone.
(Art thou a coward? No:) The coward flies;
Thinks, but thinks flightly; asks, but fears to
know;

Afks, "What is truth?" with Pilate; and retires; 245 Diffolves the court, and mingles with the throng; Afylum fad! from reafon, hope, and heaven!

Shall all, but man, look out with ardent eye, For that great day, which was ordain'd for man? O day of confummation! mark fupreme 250 (If men are wife) of human thought! nor leaft, Or in the fight of angels, or their King! Angels, whofe radiant circles, height o'er height, Order o'er order, rifing, blaze o'er blaze, As in a theatre, furround this scene, Intent on man, and anxious for his fate. Angels look out for thee; for thee, their Lord, To vindicate his glory; and for thee, Creation univerfal calls aloud,

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To dil-involve the mural world, and give 260 To nature's renovation brighter charms.

Shall man alone, whole fate, whole final fate, Hangs on that hour, exclude it from his thought? think of nothing elfe; I fee! I feel it! All nature, like an earthquake, trembling round! 265

All Deities, like fummer's fwarms, on wing!
All basking in the full meridian blaze!
I 'ee the Judge enthron'd! the flaming guard!
The volume open'd! open'd every heart!
A fun-beam pointing gat each fecret thought 270

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Art thou in time, or in eternity?
Nor in eternity, nor time, I find thee.
Thefe, as two monarchs, on their borders meet,
(Monarchs of all elaps'd, or unarriv'd!)
As in debate, how beft their powers ally'd,
May fwell the grandeur, or discharge the wrath,
Of Him, whom both their monarchies obey.
Time, this faft fabric for him built (and doom'd
With him to fall) now bursting o'er his head;
His lamp, the fun, extinguish'd; from beneath 300
The frown of hideous darkness, calls his fons
From their long flumber; from earth's heaving
,womb,

To fecond birth! contemporary throng!
Rous'd at One call, upftarted from One bed,

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The Goddess, with determin'd afpect, turns
Her adamantine key's enormous fize
Through destiny's inextricable wards,
Deep driving every bolt, on both their fates.
Then, from the eryftal battlements of heaven, 345
Down, down, the hurls it through the dark pro-
found,

Ten thousand thousand fathom; there to rust,
And ne'er unlock her refolution more.

The deep refounds; and hell, through all her glooms,

Returns, in groans, the melancholy roar.
O how unlike the chorus of the kies!
O how unlike thole fhouts of joy, that fhake
The whole ethereal! How the concave rings!
Nor ftrange! when deities their voice exalt ;
And louder far, than when creation role,
To fee creation's godlike aim, and end,
So well accomplish'd! to divinely clos'd!
To fee the mighty dramatifi's last a&t
(As meet) in glory rifing o'er the rest.
No fancy'd God, a God indeed, defcends,
To folve all knots; to ftrike the moral home;
To throw full day on darkest scenes of time;

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Preft in One croud, appall'd with One amaze, 305 To clear, commend, exalt, and crown the

He turns them o'er, Eternity! to thee.

Then (as a king depos'd difdains to live)
He falls on his own feythe; nor falls alone;
His greateft foe falls with him, Time, and he
Who murder'd all Time's offspring, Death, ex-
pire.

Time was! Eternity now reigns alone!
Aweful Eternity! offended queen!
And her refentment to mankind, how juft!
With kind intent, foliciting accefs,

How often has the knock'd at human hearts!
Rich to repay their hofpitality,

How often call'd! and with the voice of God!
Yet bore repulfe, excluded as a cheat!

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Amidft applauding worlds,
And worlds celeftial, is their found on earth,
A peevish, diffonant, rebellious ftring,
Which jars on the grand chorus, and complaine?
315 Cenfure on thee, Lorenzo! I fulpend,

A dream! while fouleft foes found welcome there!

A dream, a cheat, now, all things, but her smile. 320 For, lo her twice ten thousand gates thrown wide,

As thrice from Indus to the frozen pole,
With banners ftreaming as the comet's blaze,
And clarions, louder than the deep in ftorms,
Sonorous as inmortal breath can blow,
Pour forth their myriads, potentates, and powers,
Of light, of darkness; in a middle field,
Wide, as creation! populous, as wide!

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And turn it on myself; how greatly due!
All, all is right; by God ordain'd or done;
And who, but God, refum'd the friends He
gave?

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And have I been complaining, then, fo long?
Complaining of his favours, pain, and death?
Who, without pain's advice, would e'er be good?
Who, without death, but would be good in vain?
Pain is to fave from pain; all punishment, 380
To make for peace; and death to fave from death;
And fecond death, to guard immortal life;
To roufe the careless, the prefumptuous awe,
And turn the tide of fouls another way;
By the fame tenderness divine ordain'd,
That planted Eden, and high-bloom'd for man,
A fairer Eden, endless, in the kies.

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Heaven gives us friends to blefs the present

fcene;

Refumes them, to prepare us for the next.
All evils natural are moral goods;
All difcipline, indulgence, on the whole,
None are unhappy: all have caufe to fmile,
But fuch as to themfelves that cause deny,
Our faults are at the bottom of our pains;
Error, in acts, or judgment, is the fource
Of endless fighs:, We fin, or we mistake ;
And nature tax, when falfe opinion ftings.
Let impious grief be banish'd, joy indulg'd;
But chiefly then, when grief puts in her claim,
Joy from the joyous, frequently betrays,
Oft lives in vanity, and dies in woe.
Joy, amidft ills, corroborates, exalts;

'Tis joy and conqueft; joy, and virtue too.
A noble fortitude in ills, delights
Heaven, earth, ourselves; 'tis duty,
peace.

Affliction is the good man's fhining seene;
Profperity conceals his brighteft ray;
As night to ftars, woe luftre gives to man.
Heroes in battle, pilots in the ftorm,
And virtue in calamities, admire

1

Ills?--there are none :--All-gracious! none from thee:

From man full many numerous is the race 390 Of blackeftills, and thofe immortal too, Begot by madness on fair liberty;

Heaven's daughter, hell-debauch'd her hand alone

Unlocks deftruction to the fons of men,

4,50

395 Firft barr'd by thine: high-wall'd with ada

400

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From nature's courfe, indulgently reveal'd; If unreveal'd, more dangerous, nor less fure. Thus, an indulgent father warns his fons, 405" Do this; fly that"-----nor always tells the cause;

glory,

460

Pleas'd to reward, as duty to his will, A condu& needful to their own repose. Great God of wonders! (if, thy love furvey'd, 410 Aught elfe the name of wonderful retains) What racks are thefe, on which to build our truft!

415

The crown of manhood in a winter-joy; An evergreen, that ftands the Northern blaft, And bloffoms in the rigour of our fate. 'Tis a prime part of happinels, to know How much unhappiness must prove our lot; A part which few poffefs! I'll pay life's tax, Without one rebel murmur, from this hour, Nor think it milery to be a man; Who thinks it is, fhall never be a God. Some ills we wish for, when we wish to live. What spoke proud passion?---“ * Wish my being loft?"

Prefumptuous! blafphemous! abfurd ! and falfe! The triumph of my foul is--That I am;

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And therefore that I may be---what? Lorenzɔ!
Look inward, and look deep; and deeper ftill;

Unfathomably deep our treasure runs
In golden veins, through all eternity!
Ages, and ages, and fucceeding ftill
New

435

ages, where the phantom of an hour, Which courts, each night, dull flumber, for repair, 430

Shall wake, and wonder, and exult, and praife.
And fly through infinite, and all unlock;
And (if deferv'd) by heaven's redundant love,
Made half-adorable itself, adore;
And find, in adoration; endlefs joy!
Where thou, not mafter of a moment here,
Frail as the flower, and fleeting as the gale,
May'it boaft a whole eternity, enrich'd

With all a kind Omnipotence can pour.

Since Adam fell, no mortal, uninipir'd,

No man

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Has ever yet conceiv'd, or ever fhall, How kind is God, how great (if goed) is Man. too largely from heaven's love can hope, what is hop'd he labours to fecure.

Referring to the First Night

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Thy ways admit no blemish; none I find;
Or this alone---" That none is to be found."
Not one, to foften cenfure's hardy crime;
Not one, to palliate peevish grief's Complaint,
Who like a demon, murmuring from the duft, 470
Dares into judgment call her Judge.--Supreme!
For all I blefs thee; moft, for the fevere;
* Her death---my own at hand---the fiery gulph,
That flaming bound of wrath omnipotent!
It thunders---but it thunders to preferve;
It strengthens what it ftrikes; its wholefome dread
Averts the dreaded pain; its hideous groans
Join heaven's tweet hallelujahs in thy praife,
Great Source of good alene! How kind in all !
In vengeance kind! pain, death, gehenna, Save. 48Q
Thus, in thy world material, Mighty Mind!
Not that alone which folaces, and fhines,
The rough and gloomy, challenges our praife,
The winter is as needful as the Spring;
The thunder, as the fun; a ftagnate mafs
Of vapours breeds a peftilential air:
Nor more propitious the Favonian breeze
To nature's health, than purifying ftorms;
The dread Volcano minifters to good.
Is fmother'd flames might undermine the world,

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