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From “Night Thoughts,” Night VI.
AS in a wheel, all sinks, to reascend: | |
| Emblems of man, who passes, not expires. | |
| With this minute distinction, emblems just, | |
| Nature revolves, but man advances; both | |
| Eternal, that a circle, this a line. | 5 |
| That gravitates, this soars. Th’ aspiring soul, | |
| Ardent, and tremulous, like flame, ascends, | |
| Zeal and humility her wings, to Heaven. | |
| The world of matter, with its various forms, | |
| All dies into new life. Life born from death | 10 |
| Rolls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll. | |
| No single atom, once in being, lost, | |
| With change of counsel charges the Most High. | |
| What hence infers Lorenzo? Can it be? | |
| Matter immortal? And shall spirit die? | 15 |
| Above the nobler, shall less noble rise? | |
| Shall man alone, for whom all else revives, | |
| No resurrection know? Shall man alone, | |
| Imperial man! be sown in barren ground, | |
| Less privileged than grain, on which he feeds? * * * * * | 20 |
| Look Nature through, ’t is neat gradation all. | |
| By what minute degrees her scale ascends! | |
| Each middle nature joined at each extreme, | |
| To that above is joined, to that beneath; | |
| Parts, into parts reciprocally shot, | 25 |
| Abhor divorce: what love of union reigns! | |
| Here, dormant matter waits a call to life; | |
| Half-life, half-death, joined there; here life and sense; | |
| There, sense from reason steals a glimmering ray; | |
| Reason shines out in man. But how preserved | 30 |
| The chain unbroken upward, to the realms | |
| Of incorporeal life? those realms of bliss | |
| Where death hath no dominion? Grant a make | |
| Half-mortal, half-immortal; earthy, part, | |
| And part ethereal; grant the soul of man | 35 |
| Eternal; or in man the series ends. | |
| Wide yawns the gap; connection is no more; | |
| Checked Reason halts; her next step wants support; | |
| Striving to climb, she tumbles from her scheme. | |
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