Young's Night Thoughts Part 31

And what a G.o.d must dwell in such a fane!

Oh, what a genius must inform the skies!

And is Lorenzo's salamander heart Cold, and untouch'd, amid these sacred fires?

O ye nocturnal sparks! ye glowing embers, 1360 On heaven's broad hearth! who burn, or burn no more, Who blaze, or die, as Great Jehovah's breath Or blows you, or forbears; a.s.sist my song; Pour your whole influence; exorcise his heart, So long possess'd; and bring him back to man.

And is Lorenzo a demurrer still?

Pride in thy parts provokes thee to contest Truths, which, contested, put thy parts to shame.

Nor shame they more Lorenzo's head than heart, A faithless heart, how despicably small! 1370 Too strait, aught great or generous to receive! 1371 Fill'd with an atom! fill'd, and foul'd, with self!

And self mistaken! self, that lasts an hour!

Instincts and pa.s.sions, of the n.o.bler kind, Lie suffocated there; or they alone, Reason apart, would wake high hope; and open, To ravish'd thought, that intellectual sphere, Where order, wisdom, goodness, providence, Their endless miracles of love display, And promise all the truly great desire. 1380 The mind that would be happy, must be great; Great, in its wishes; great, in its surveys.

Extended views a narrow mind extend; Push out its corrugate, expansive make, Which, ere long, more than planets shall embrace.

A man of compa.s.s makes a man of worth; Divine contemplate, and become divine.

As man was made for glory, and for bliss, All littleness is in approach to woe; Open thy bosom, set thy wishes wide, 1390 And let in manhood; let in happiness; Admit the boundless theatre of thought From nothing, up to G.o.d; which makes a man.

Take G.o.d from nature, nothing great is left; Man's mind is in a pit, and nothing sees; Man's heart is in a jakes[69], and loves the mire.

Emerge from thy profound; erect thine eye; See thy distress! how close art thou besieged!

Besieged by Nature, the proud sceptic's foe!

Enclosed by these innumerable worlds, 1400 Sparkling conviction on the darkest mind, As in a golden net of Providence.

How art thou caught, sure captive of belief!

From this thy bless'd captivity, what art, What blasphemy to reason, sets thee free! 1405 This scene is heaven's indulgent violence: Canst thou bear up against this tide of glory?

What is earth bosom'd in these ambient orbs, But, faith in G.o.d imposed, and press'd on man?

Darest thou still litigate thy desperate cause, Spite of these numerous, awful, witnesses, And doubt the deposition of the skies? 1412 O how laborious is thy way to ruin!

Laborious! 'tis impracticable quite; To sink beyond a doubt, in this debate, With all his weight of wisdom and of will, And crime flagitious, I defy a fool.

Some wish they did; but no man disbelieves.

G.o.d is a spirit; spirit cannot strike These gross, material organs; G.o.d by man 1420 As much is seen, as man a G.o.d can see, In these astonishing exploits of power.

What order, beauty, motion, distance, size!

Concertion of design, how exquisite!

How complicate, in their divine police!

Apt means! great ends! consent to general good!-- Each attribute of these material G.o.ds, So long (and that with specious pleas) adored, A separate conquest gains o'er rebel thought; And leads in triumph the whole mind of man. 1430 Lorenzo! this may seem harangue to thee; Such all is apt to seem, that thwarts our will.

And dost thou, then, demand a simple proof Of this great master moral of the skies, Unskill'd, or disinclined, to read it there?

Since 'tis the basis, and all drops without it, Take it, in one compact, unbroken chain.

Such proof insists on an attentive ear; 'Twill not make one amid a mob of thoughts, 1439 And, for thy notice, struggle with the world.

Retire;--the world shut out;--thy thoughts call home;-- Imagination's airy wing repress;-- Lock up thy senses;--let no pa.s.sion stir;-- Wake all to Reason;--let her reign alone;-- Then, in thy soul's deep silence, and the depth Of Nature's silence, midnight, thus inquire, As I have done; and shall inquire no more.

In nature's channel, thus the questions run: "What am I? and from whence?--I nothing know, But that I am; and, since I am, conclude 1450 Something eternal: had there e'er been nought, Nought still had been: eternal there must be.-- But what eternal?--Why not human race?

And Adam's ancestors without an end?-- That's hard to be conceived; since every link Of that long-chain'd succession is so frail; Can every part depend, and not the whole?

Yet grant it true; new difficulties rise; I'm still quite out at sea; nor see the sh.o.r.e.

Whence earth, and these bright orbs?--eternal too?

Grant matter was eternal; still these orbs 1461 Would want some other father;--much design Is seen in all their motions, all their makes; Design implies intelligence, and art; That can't be from themselves--or man; that art Man scarce can comprehend, could man bestow?

And nothing greater yet allow'd than man.-- Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain, Shot through vast ma.s.ses of enormous weight?

Who bid brute matter's restive lump a.s.sume 1470 Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?

Has matter innate motion? then each atom, a.s.serting its indisputable right 1473 To dance, would form an universe of dust: Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms And boundless flights, from shapeless, and reposed?

Has matter more than motion? Has it thought, Judgment, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd In mathematics? Has it framed such laws, Which but to guess, a Newton made immortal?-- 1480 If so, how each sage atom laughs at me, Who think a clod inferior to a man!

If art, to form; and counsel, to conduct; And that with greater far than human skill; Resides not in each block;--a G.o.dhead reigns.-- Grant, then, invisible, eternal, Mind; That granted, all is solved.--But, granting that, Draw I not o'er me a still darker cloud?

Grant I not that which I can ne'er conceive?

A being without origin, or end!-- 1490 Hail, human liberty! There is no G.o.d-- Yet, why? On either scheme that knot subsists; Subsist it must, in G.o.d, or human race; If in the last, how many knots beside, Indissoluble all?--Why choose it there, Where, chosen, still subsist ten thousand more?

Reject it, where, that chosen, all the rest Dispersed, leave reason's whole horizon clear?

This is not reason's dictate; Reason says, Close with the side where one grain turns the scale;-- 1500 What vast preponderance is here! can reason With louder voice exclaim--Believe a G.o.d?

And reason heard, is the sole mark of man.

What things impossible must man think true, On any other system! and how strange To disbelieve, through mere credulity!"

If, in this chain, Lorenzo finds no flaw, 1507 Let it for ever bind him to belief.

And where the link, in which a flaw he finds?

And, if a G.o.d there is, that G.o.d how great!

How great that Power, whose providential care Through these bright orbs' dark centres darts a ray!

Of nature universal threads the whole!

And hangs creation, like a precious gem, Though little, on the footstool of his throne!

That little gem, how large! A weight let fall From a fix'd star, in ages can it reach This distant earth! Say, then, Lorenzo! where, Where, ends this mighty building? where, begin The suburbs of creation? where, the wall 1520 Whose battlements look o'er into the vale Of non-existence! Nothing's strange abode!

Say, at what point of s.p.a.ce Jehovah dropp'd His slacken'd line, and laid his balance by; Weigh'd worlds, and measured infinite, no more?

Where, rears His terminating pillar high Its extra-mundane head? and says, to G.o.ds, In characters ill.u.s.trious as the sun,--

"I stand, the plan's proud period; I p.r.o.nounce The work accomplish'd; the creation closed: 1530 Shout, all ye G.o.ds! nor shout ye G.o.ds alone; Of all that lives, or, if devoid of life, That rests, or rolls, ye heights, and depths, resound!

Resound! resound! ye depths, and heights, resound!"

Hard are those questions!--answer harder still.

Is this the sole exploit, the single birth, The solitary son of power divine?

Or has th' Almighty Father, with a breath, Impregnated the womb of distant s.p.a.ce? 1539 Has He not bid, in various provinces, Brother-creations the dark bowels burst Of night primeval; barren, now, no more?

And He the central sun, transpiercing all Those giant generations, which disport And dance, as motes, in his meridian ray; That ray withdrawn, benighted, or absorb'd, In that abyss of horror, whence they sprung; While Chaos triumphs, repossess'd of all Rival Creation ravish'd from his throne?

Chaos! of Nature both the womb, and grave! 1550 Think'st thou my scheme, Lorenzo, spreads too wide?

Is this extravagant?--No; this is just; Just, in conjecture, though 'twere false in fact.

If 'tis an error, 'tis an error sprung From n.o.ble root, high thought of the Most High.

But wherefore error? who can prove it such?-- He that can set Omnipotence a bound.

Can man conceive beyond what G.o.d can do?

Nothing, but quite impossible is hard.

He summons into being, with like ease, 1560 A whole creation, and a single grain.

Speaks he the word? a thousand worlds are born!

A thousand worlds? there's s.p.a.ce for millions more: And in what s.p.a.ce can his great fiat fail?

Condemn me not, cold critic! but indulge The warm imagination: why condemn?

Why not indulge such thoughts, as swell our hearts With fuller admiration of that Power, Who gives our hearts with such high thoughts to swell?

Why not indulge in His augmented praise? 1570 Darts not His glory a still brighter ray, The less is left to Chaos, and the realms Of hideous Night, where Fancy strays aghast; 1573 And, though most talkative, makes no report?

Still seems my thought enormous? Think again;-- Experience' self shall aid thy lame belief.

Gla.s.ses (that revelation to the sight!) Have they not led us in the deep disclose Of fine-spun nature, exquisitely small, And, though demonstrated, still ill-conceived? 1580 If, then, on the reverse, the mind would mount In magnitude, what mind can mount too far, To keep the balance, and creation poise?

Defect alone can err on such a theme; What is too great, if we the cause survey?

Stupendous Architect! Thou, Thou art all!

My soul flies up and down in thoughts of Thee, And finds herself but at the centre still!

I AM, thy name! Existence, all thine own!

Creation's nothing; flatter'd much, if styled 1590 "The thin, the fleeting atmosphere of G.o.d."

O for the voice--of what? of whom?--What voice Can answer to my wants, in such ascent, As dares to deem one universe too small?

Tell me, Lorenzo! (for now fancy glows; Fired in the vortex of almighty power) Is not this home creation, in the map Of universal nature, as a speck, Like fair Britannia in our little ball; Exceeding fair, and glorious, for its size, 1600 But, elsewhere, far outmeasured, far outshone?

In fancy (for the fact beyond us lies) Canst thou not figure it, an isle, almost Too small for notice, in the vast of being; Sever'd by mighty seas of unbuilt s.p.a.ce From other realms; from ample continents Of higher life, where n.o.bler natives dwell; 1607 Less northern, less remote from Deity, Glowing beneath the line of the Supreme; Where souls in excellence make haste, put forth Luxuriant growths; nor the late autumn wait Of human worth, but ripen soon to G.o.ds?

Yet why drown fancy in such depths as these?

Return, presumptuous rover! and confess The bounds of man; nor blame them, as too small.

Enjoy we not full scope in what is seen?

Pull ample the dominions of the sun!

Full glorious to behold! How far, how wide, The matchless monarch, from his flaming throne, 1619 Lavish of l.u.s.tre, throws his beams about him, Farther, and faster, than a thought can fly, And feeds his planets with eternal fires!

This Heliopolis,[70] by greater far, Than the proud tyrant of the Nile, was built; And He alone, who built it, can destroy.

Beyond this city, why strays human thought?

One wonderful, enough for man to know!

One infinite! enough for man to range!

One firmament, enough for man to read!

O what voluminous instruction here! 1630 What page of wisdom is denied him? None; If learning his chief lesson makes him wise.

Nor is instruction, here, our only gain; There dwells a n.o.ble pathos in the skies, Which warms our pa.s.sions, proselytes our hearts.

How eloquently shines the glowing pole!

With what authority it gives its charge, Remonstrating great truths in style sublime, Though silent, loud! heard earth around; above The planets heard; and not unheard in h.e.l.l; 1640 h.e.l.l has her wonder, though too proud to praise.