To make us groan beneath our gratitude,
Too big for birth! to favour, and confound;
To challenge, and to diftance all return!
Of lavish love ftupendous heights to foar,
And leave praise panting in the distant vale!
Thy right too great, defrauds thee of thy due;
And facrilegious our fublimeft fong.

Eut fince the naked will obtains thy fmile,
Beneath this monument of praife unpaid,
And future life fymphonious to my strain,
(That noblest hymn to heav'n!) for ever lie
Intomb'd my fear of death! and ev'ry fear,
The dread of ev'ry evil, but Thy frown.

Whom fee I yonder, fo demurely fmile?
Laughter a labour, and might break their reft
Ye quietifts, in homage to the skies!
Serene! of foft addrefs! who mildly make
An unobtrufive tender of your hearts,
Abhorring violence! who halt indeed;

But, for the bleffing, wrestle not with heav'n!
Think you my fong too turbulent? too warm?
Are paffions, then, the pagans of the foul?
Reafon alone baptiz'd? alone ordain'd

To touch things facred? Oh for warmer ftill!
Guilt chills my zeal, and age benumbs my pow'rs;
Oh for an humbler heart, and prouder fong!

THOU, my much injur'd theme! with that foft eye,
Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look
Compaffion to the coldness of my breaft;

And pardon to the winter in my strain.

Oh

Oh ye cold hearted, frozen, formalifts!
On fuch a theme, 'tis impious to be calm;
Paflion is reafon, tranfport temper, here.

Shall heav'n, which gave us ardor, and has fhewn
Her own for man fo ftrongly, not disdain
What fmooth emollients in theology,
Recumbent virtue's downy doctors preach,
That profe of piety, a lukewarm praise ?
Rife odours fweet from incenfe uninflam'd?
Devotion, when lukewarm, is undevout;
But when it glows, its heat is ftruck to heav'n;
To human hearts her golden harps are ftrung;
High heav'n's orchestra chaunts amen to man.

Hear I, or dream I hear, their diftant ftrain,
Sweet to the foul, and tafting strong of heav'n,
Soft wafted on celestial pity's plume,

Thro' the vaft fpaces of the univerfe,
To chear me in this melancholy gloom?

Oh when will death (now ftinglefs), like a friend,
Admit me of their choir? Oh when will death,
This mould'ring, old, partition-wall throw down?
Give beings, one in nature, one abode ?
Oh death divine! that giv'ft us to the skies!
Great future! glorious patron of the past,
And pr fent! when fhall I thy fhrine adore ?
From nature's continent, immenfely wide,
Immenfely bleft, this little ifle of life,

This dark, incarcerating colony,

Divides us. Happy day! that breaks our chain;
That manumits; that calls from exile home;

That

That leads to nature's great metropolis,

And re-admits us, thro' the guardian hand
Of elder brothers, to our Father's throne;
Who hears our Advocate, and, thro' his wounds
Beholding man, allows that tender name.
'Tis this makes Chriftian triumph a command:
'Tis this makes joy a duty to the wife ;
'Tis impious, in a good man to be fad.

See thou, LORENZO! where hangs all our hope?
Touch'd by the Crofs, we live; or, more than die ;
That touch which touch'd not angels; more divine
Than that, which touch'd confufion into form,
And darkness into glory; partial touch !
Ineffably pre-eminent regard!

Sacred to man, and sovʼreign thro' the whole
Long golden chain of miracles, which hangs
From heav'n thro' all duration, and fupports
In one illuftrious, and amazing plan,
Thy welfare, nature! and thy God's renown;
That touch, with charm celeftial, heals the foul
Difeas'd, drives pain from guilt, lights life in death,
Turns earth to heav'n, to heav'nly thrones transforms
The ghaftly ruins of the mould'ring tomb.

Dost ask me when? When HE who dy'd returns ; Returns, how chang'd! Where then the man of woe? In glory's terrors all the godhead burns;

And all his courts, exhausted by the tide
Of deities triumphant in his train,
Leave a ftupendous folitude in heaven;
Replenisht foon, replenifht with increase

Of

Of pomp, and multitude; a radiant band
Of angels new; of angels from the tomb.

Is this by fancy thrown remote? and rife
Dark doubts between the promife, and event?
I fend thee not to volumes for thy cure;
Read Nature; nature is a friend to truth;
Nature is Chriflian; preaches to mankind;
And bids dead matter aid us in our creed.
Haft thou ne'er feen the comet's flaming flight?
Th' illuftrious ftranger paffing, terror sheds
On gazing nations, from his fiery train
Of length enormous, takes his ample round
Thro' depths of Ether; coafts unnumber'd worlds,
Of more than folar glory; doubles wide

Heav'n's mighty cape; and then revifits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.
Thus, at the deftin'd period, shall return
HE, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze:
And, with Him, all our triumph o'er the tomb.
Nature is dumb on this important point;
Or hope precarious in low whisper breathes;
Faith speaks aloud, diftinct; ev'n adders hear;
But turn, and dart into the dark again.
Faith builds a bridge acrofs the gulph of death,
To break the fhock blind nature cannot fhun,
And lands thought smoothly on the farther shore.
Death's terror is the mountain faith removes ;
That mountain barrier between man and peace.
'Tis faith difarms deftruction; and abfolves
From ev'ry clam'rous charge, the guiltless tomb.

Why

Why difbelieve? LORENZO!" Reafon bids, "All facred reafon."-Hold her facred ftill; Nor fhalt thou want a rival in thy flame: All-facred reafon ! fource, and foul, of all Demanding praife, on earth, or earth above! My heart is thine: Deep in its inmost folds, Live thou with life; live dearer of the two. Wear I the bleffed Crofs, by fortune flampt On paffive nature, before thought was born? My birth's blind bigot! fir'd with local zeal! No; reafon rebaptiz'd me when adult; Weigh'd true, and false, in her impartial scale; My heart became the convert of my head; And made that choice, which once was but "On argument alone my faith is built: Reafon purfu'd is faith; and, unpurfu'd Where proof invites, 'tis reason, then, no more: And fuch our proof, That, or our faith, is right, Or reafon lyes, and heav'n defign'd it wrong, Abfolve we This? What, then, is blafphemy?

my

fate.

Fond as we are, and juftly fond of faith, Reason, we grant, demands our first regard; The mother honour'd, as the daughter dear. Reafon the root, fair faith is but the flower; The fading flower fhall die; but reafon lives Immortal, as her Father in the skies. When faith is virtue, reafon makes it fo. Wrong not the Christian; think not reason yours ; "Tis reason our great Mafter holds fo dear; 'Tis reafon's injur'd rights His wrath resents;