Young's Night Thoughts Part 20

"Undrawn no more!--Behind the cloud of death, Once I beheld a sun; a sun which gilt That sable cloud, and turn'd it all to gold: How the grave's alter'd! fathomless, as h.e.l.l!

A real h.e.l.l to those who dreamt of heaven.

Annihilation! how it yawns before me!

Next moment I may drop from thought, from sense, 820 The privilege of angels, and of worms, An outcast from existence! and this spirit, This all-pervading, this all-conscious soul, This particle of energy divine, Which travels nature, flies from star to star, And visits G.o.ds, and emulates their powers, For ever is extinguish'd. Horror! death!

Death of that death I fearless once survey'd!-- When horror universal shall descend, And heaven's dark concave urn all human race, 830 On that enormous, unrefunding tomb, How just this verse! this monumental sigh!"

Beneath the lumber of demolish'd worlds, Deep in the rubbish of the general wreck, Swept ignominious to the common ma.s.s Of matter, never dignified with life, Here lie proud rationals; the sons of heaven!

The lords of earth! the property of worms!

Beings of yesterday, and no to-morrow!

Who lived in terror, and in pangs expired! 840 All gone to rot in chaos; or to make Their happy transit into blocks or brutes, 842 Nor longer sully their Creator's name.

Lorenzo! hear, pause, ponder, and p.r.o.nounce.

Just is this history? If such is man, Mankind's historian, though divine, might weep.

And dares Lorenzo smile!--I know thee proud; For once let Pride befriend thee; Pride looks pale At such a scene, and sighs for something more.

Amid thy boasts, presumptions, and displays, 850 And art thou then a shadow? less than shade?

A nothing? less than nothing? To have been, And not to be, is lower than unborn.

Art thou ambitious? Why then make the worm Thine equal? Runs thy taste of pleasure high?

Why patronise sure death of every joy?

Charm riches? Why choose beggary in the grave, Of every hope a bankrupt! and for ever?

Ambition, pleasure, avarice, persuade thee To make that world of glory, rapture, wealth, 860 They lately proved,[37] the soul's supreme desire.

What art thou made of? Rather, how unmade?

Great Nature's master-appet.i.te destroy'd!

Is endless life, and happiness, despised?

Or both wish'd, here, where neither can be found?

Such man's perverse, eternal war with Heaven!

Darest thou persist? And is there nought on earth But a long train of transitory forms, Rising, and breaking, millions in an hour?

Bubbles of a fantastic deity, blown up 870 In sport, and then in cruelty destroy'd?

Oh! for what crime, unmerciful Lorenzo!

Destroys thy scheme the whole of human race?

Kind is fell Lucifer, compared to thee: 874 Oh! spare this waste of being half divine; And vindicate th' economy of Heaven.

Heaven is all love; all joy in giving joy: It never had created, but to bless: And shall it, then, strike off the list of life, A being bless'd, or worthy so to be?

Heaven starts at an annihilating G.o.d.

Is that, all Nature starts at, thy desire? 882 Art such a clod to wish thyself all clay?

What is that dreadful wish?--The dying groan Of Nature, murder'd by the blackest guilt.

What deadly poison has thy nature drank?

To Nature undebauch'd no shock so great; Nature's first wish is endless happiness; Annihilation is an after-thought, A monstrous wish, unborn till virtue dies. 890 And, oh! what depth of horror lies enclosed!

For non-existence no man ever wish'd, But, first, he wish'd the Deity destroy'd.

If so; what words are dark enough to draw Thy picture true? The darkest are too fair.

Beneath what baleful planet, in what hour Of desperation, by what fury's aid, In what infernal posture of the soul, All h.e.l.l invited, and all h.e.l.l in joy At such a birth, a birth so near of kin, 900 Did thy foul fancy whelp so black a scheme Of hopes abortive, faculties half-blown, And deities begun, reduced to dust?

There's nought (thou say'st) but one eternal flux Of feeble essences, tumultuous driven Through Time's rough billows into Night's abyss.

Say, in this rapid tide of human ruin, Is there no rock, on which man's tossing thought 908 Can rest from terror, dare his fate survey, And boldly think it something to be born?

Amid such hourly wrecks of being fair, Is there no central, all-sustaining base, All-realising, all-connecting power, Which, as it call'd forth all things, can recall, And force Destruction to refund her spoil?

Command the grave restore her taken prey?

Bid death's dark vale its human harvest yield, And earth, and ocean, pay their debt of man, True to the grand deposit trusted there?

Is there no potentate, whose outstretch'd arm, 920 When ripening time calls forth th' appointed hour, Pluck'd from foul Devastation's famish'd maw, Binds present, past, and future, to his throne?

His throne, how glorious, thus divinely graced, By germinating beings cl.u.s.tering round!

A garland worthy the divinity!

A throne, by Heaven's omnipotence in smiles, Built (like a Pharos towering in the waves) Amidst immense effusions of his love!

An ocean of communicated bliss! 930 An all-prolific, all-preserving G.o.d!

This were a G.o.d indeed.--And such is man, As here presumed: he rises from his fall.

Think'st thou Omnipotence a naked root, Each blossom fair of Deity destroy'd?

Nothing is dead; nay, nothing sleeps; each soul, That ever animated human clay, Now wakes; is on the wing: and where, oh! where, Will the swarm settle?--When the trumpet's call, As sounding bra.s.s, 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 G.o.d!

Earth, but the shambles of Omnipotence!

Heaven's face all stain'd with causeless ma.s.sacres 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 G.o.d 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.

Truth is immortal as thy soul; and fable As fleeting as thy joys: be wise, nor make Heaven's highest blessing, vengeance; oh, be wise! 990 Nor make a curse of immortality.

Say, know'st thou what it is, or what thou art?

Know'st thou th' importance of a soul immortal?

Behold this midnight glory: worlds on worlds!

Amazing pomp! redouble this amaze; Ten thousand add; add twice ten thousand more; Then weigh the whole; one soul outweighs them all; And calls th' astonishing magnificence Of unintelligent creation, poor.

For this, believe not me; no man believe: 1000 Trust not in words, but deeds; and deeds no less Than those of the Supreme; nor His, a few; Consult them all; consulted, all proclaim Thy soul's importance: tremble at thyself; For whom Omnipotence has waked so long: Has waked, and work'd, for ages; from the birth Of Nature to this unbelieving hour.

In this small province of His vast domain (All nature bow, while I p.r.o.nounce His Name!) What has G.o.d done, and not for this sole end, 1010 To rescue souls from death? The soul's high price Is writ in all the conduct of the skies.

The soul's high price is the creation's key, Unlocks its mysteries, and naked lays The genuine cause of every deed divine: That is the chain of ages, which maintains Their obvious correspondence, and unites Most distant periods in one bless'd design: That is the mighty hinge, on which have turn'd All revolutions, whether we regard 1020 The natural, civil, or religious, world; The former two but servants to the third: To that their duty done, they both expire, Their ma.s.s new-cast, forgot their deeds renown'd; And angels ask, "Where once they shone so fair?"

To lift us from this abject, to sublime; This flux, to permanent; this dark, to day; This foul, to pure; this turbid, to serene; This mean, to mighty!--for this glorious end Th' Almighty, rising, his long Sabbath broke! 1030 The world was made; was ruin'd; was restored; Laws from the skies were publish'd; were repeal'd; On earth, kings, kingdoms, rose; kings, kingdoms, fell; Famed sages lighted up the Pagan world; Prophets from Sion darted a keen glance Through distant age; saints travell'd; martyrs bled; By wonders sacred nature stood controll'd; The living were translated; dead were raised; Angels, and more than angels, came from heaven; And, oh! for this, descended lower still; 1040 Guilt was h.e.l.l's gloom; astonish'd at his guest, For one short moment Lucifer adored: Lorenzo! and wilt thou do less?--For this, That hallow'd page, fools scoff at, was inspired, 1044 Of all these truths thrice venerable code!

Deists! perform your quarantine; and then Fall prostrate, ere you touch it, lest you die.

Nor less intensely bent infernal powers To mar, than those of light, this end to gain.

Oh, what a scene is here!--Lorenzo, wake!

Rise to the thought; exert, expand thy soul To take the vast idea: it denies 1052 All else the name of great. Two warring worlds!

Not Europe against Afric; warring worlds!

Of more than mortal! mounted on the wing!

On ardent wings of energy, and zeal, High hovering o'er this little brand of strife!

This sublunary ball--but strife, for what?

In their own cause conflicting? No; in thine, In Man's. His single interest blows the flame; 1060 His the sole stake; his fate the trumpet sounds, Which kindles war immortal. How it burns!

Tumultuous swarms of deities in arms!

Force, force opposing, till the waves run high, And tempest nature's universal sphere.

Such opposites eternal, steadfast, stern, Such foes implacable, are Good, and Ill; Yet man, vain man, would mediate peace between them.

Think not this fiction, "There was war in heaven."

From heaven's high crystal mountain, where it hung, Th' Almighty's outstretch'd arm took down his bow, 1071 And shot his indignation at the deep: Re-thunder'd h.e.l.l, and darted all her fires.-- And seems the stake of little moment still?

And slumbers man, who singly caused the storm?

He sleeps.--And art thou shock'd at mysteries?

The greatest, thou. How dreadful to reflect, What ardour, care, and counsel, mortals cause 1078 In b.r.e.a.s.t.s divine! how little in their own!

Where'er I turn, how new proofs pour upon me!

How happily this wondrous view supports My former argument! How strongly strikes Immortal life's full demonstration, here!

Why this exertion? Why this strange regard From heaven's Omnipotent indulged to man?-- Because, in man, the glorious dreadful power, Extremely to be pain'd, or bless'd, for ever.