Classic Poem

A DIALOGUE between the Fallen ANGELS, and a Human SPIRIT just entered into the other world.

Human SPIRIT.

Long struggling in the agonies of death,
With horror I resign'd my mortal breath:
With horror long the fatal gulph I view'd,
And shiv'ring on its utmost edges stood;
'Till forc'd to take th' inevitable leap,
I hurry'd headlong down the gloomy steep:
And here of every hope bereft, I find
Myself a naked, an unbody'd mind.
My lov'd, my fond officious friends in vain,
My fleeting soul endeavour'd to retain;
In vain its blooming mansion did invite;
Grandeur, and wealth, and love, and soft delight,
With tempting calls in vain its flight would stay,
When forc'd by the severe decree away.
'Tis past — — and all like a thin vision gone,
For which I have my wretched soul undone;
And wandring on this dark, detested shore,
My eyes shall view the upper light no more.

Fallen ANGELS.

Then welcome to the regions of despair!
Thy ruin cost us much design and care,
And thou had'st 'scap'd, but for one happy snare;
And in the blissful skies supply'd the place
Of some fall'n spirit of our nobler race:
Thou coul'd the thirst of wine or wealth controul,
And no malicious sin has stain'd thy soul;
But for the joys of one forbidden love
Hast lost the boundless ecstasies above.

Human SPIRIT.

And all was freely, freely all was lost;
How dear has one short dream of pleasure cost!
But yet this fatal, this inchanting dream,
I should, perhaps, beyond ev'n heav'n esteem,
Were it as permanent: but, ah! 'tis gone
And I a wretch abandon'd and undone,
Of God, of every smiling hope, am left,
And all my dear delights on earth bereft;
While here for gilded roofs, and painted bow'rs,
For pleasant walks, and beds of fragrant flow'rs,
I find polluted dens, and pitchy streams,
And burning paths, with beds of raging flames;
Instead of music's sweet inspiring sound,
Repeated yells, and endless groans go round;
And for the lovely faces of my friends,
I meet the ghastly visages of fiends;
A thousand nameless terrors are behind,
Despair, confusion, fury, seize my mind:
But will my griefs no happy period find?

Fallen ANGELS.

Count all the twinkling glories of the sky,
Count all the drops that in the ocean lie;
Of all the earthly globe the atoms count,
Eternal years thy numbers still surmount.
Millions of tedious ling'ring ages gone,
Thy misery, thy hell, is but begun.
As fix'd, as permanent, thy bliss had been,
But for one darling, one beloved sin;
Cold to the baits of any other vice,
Beauty alone could thy fond thoughts entice;
By this, (or all our strategems had fail'd,)
By this we o'er thy temp'rate youth prevail'd.
Poor, sottish soul! below our envy now,
For what a toy didst thou a heaven forego?

Human SPIRIT.

O tell me not from what fair hopes I fell!
Just missing heaven, but aggravates my hell.

Fallen ANGELS.

Thou know'st not what thou'st lost, but we too well
The glories of that happy place can tell.
There endless heights of ecstacy they prove,
There's lasting beauty and immortal love,
There flowing pleasures in full torrents roll;
For pleasures form'd, this loss must rack thy soul.

Human SPIRIT.

With how much cruel art you aggravate
My misery's intolerable weight?

Fallen ANGELS.

Our envy once, thou'rt now become our scorn,
In vain for thee the Son of God was born;
That mighty favour, that peculiar grace,
Too glorious for the fall'n angelic race,
Serves only to exasperate thy doom,
And give th' infernal shades a darker gloom.

Human SPIRIT.

Oh! that's the wounding circumstance of all,
To lower depths of woe I cannot fall:
Ye curst tormentors, now your rage is spent,
Your fury can no further hell invent:
A Saviour's title, a Redeemer's blood,
Their worth, till now, I little understood.