Propense his heart to idols, he is held In silly dotage on created things Careless of their Creator. And that low And sordid gravitation of his powers To a vile clod, so draws him with such force Resistless from the centre he should seek, That he at last forgets it. All his hopes Tend downward, his ambition is to sink, To reach a depth profounder still, and still Profounder, in the fathomless abyss Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death.
But ere he gain the comfortless repose He seeks, and acquiescence of his soul, In heaven renouncing exile, he endures What does he not? from lusts opposed in vain, And self-reproaching conscience. He foresees The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace, Fortune, and dignity; the loss of all That can ennoble man, and make frail life, Short as it is, supportable. Still worse, Far worse than all the plagues with which his sins Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes Ages of hopeless misery; future death, And death still future; not a hasty stroke, Like that which sends him to the dusty grave, But unrepealable enduring death.
Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears:
What none can prove a forgery, may be true;What none but bad men wish exploded, must.
That scruple checks him. Riot is not loud Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst Of laughter his compunctions are sincere, And he abhors the jest by which he shines.
Remorse begets reform. His master-lust Falls first before his resolute rebuke, And seems dethroned and vanquished. Peace ensues, But spurious and short-lived, the puny child Of self-congratulating Pride, begot On fancied Innocence. Again he falls, And fights again; but finds his best essay, A presage ominous, portending still Its own dishonour by a worse relapse, Till Nature, unavailing Nature, foiled So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt, Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause, Perversely, which of late she so condemned;With shallow shifts and old devices, worn And tattered in the service of debauch, Covering his shame from his offended sight.
"Hath God indeed given appetites to man, And stored the earth so plenteously with means To gratify the hunger of His wish, And doth He reprobate and will He damn The use of His own bounty? making first So frail a kind, and then enacting laws So strict, that less than perfect must despair?
Falsehood! which whoso but suspects of truth, Dishonours God, and makes a slave of man.
Do they themselves, who undertake for hire The teacher's office, and dispense at large Their weekly dole of edifying strains, Attend to their own music? have they faith In what, with such solemnity of tone And gesture, they propound to our belief?
Nay--conduct hath the loudest tongue. The voice Is but an instrument on which the priest May play what tune he pleases. In the deed, The unequivocal authentic deed, We find sound argument, we read the heart."
Such reasonings (if that name must needs belong To excuses in which reason has no part)
Serve to compose a spirit well inclined To live on terms of amity with vice, And sin without disturbance. Often urged (As often as, libidinous discourse Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes Of theological and grave import), They gain at last his unreserved assent, Till, hardened his heart's temper in the forge Of lust and on the anvil of despair, He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves, Or nothing much, his constancy in ill;Vain tampering has but fostered his disease, 'Tis desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of death.
Haste now, philosopher, and set him free.
Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear Of rectitude and fitness: moral truth How lovely, and the moral sense how sure, Consulted and obeyed, to guide his steps Directly to the FIRST AND ONLY FAIR.
Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the powers Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise, Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand, And with poetic trappings grace thy prose Till it outmantle all the pride of verse.--Ah, tinkling cymbal and high-sounding brass Smitten in vain! such music cannot charm The eclipse that intercepts truth's heavenly beam, And chills and darkens a wide-wandering soul.
The still small voice is wanted. He must speak, Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect, Who calls for things that are not, and they come.
Grace makes the slave a freeman. 'Tis a change That turns to ridicule the turgid speech And stately tone of moralists, who boast, As if, like him of fabulous renown, They had indeed ability to smooth The shag of savage nature, and were each An Orpheus and omnipotent in song.
But transformation of apostate man From fool to wise, from earthly to divine, Is work for Him that made him. He alone, And He, by means in philosophic eyes Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves The wonder; humanising what is brute In the lost kind, extracting from the lips Of asps their venom, overpowering strength By weakness, and hostility by love.
Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause Bled nobly, and their deeds, as they deserve, Receive proud recompense. We give in charge Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic muse, Proud of the treasure, marches with it down To latest times; and sculpture, in her turn, Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass, To guard them, and to immortalise her trust.
But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid, To those who, posted at the shrine of truth, Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood Well spent in such a strife may earn indeed, And for a time ensure to his loved land, The sweets of liberty and equal laws;But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed In confirmation of the noblest claim, Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar, and to anticipate the skies!
