Classic Poem

There's naught (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
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-realizing, all-connecting Pow'r,
Which, as it called 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 outstretched arm,
When rip'ning time calls forth th' appointed hour,
Plucked from foul Devastation's famished maw,
Binds present, past and future to his throne?
His throne how glorious, thus divinely graced
By germinating beings clust'ring round!
A garland worthy the divinity!
A throne, by heav'n's omnipotence in smiles,
Built (like a pharos tow'ring in the waves)
Amidst immense effusions of his love!
An ocean of communicated bliss!
An all-prolific, all-preserving God!
This were a God 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 destroyed?
Nothing is dead; nay, nothing sleeps: each soul
That ever animated human clay
Now wakes; is on the wing: and where, O where
Will the swarm settle?--When the trumpet's call,
As sounding brass, collects us round heav'n's throne
Conglobed, we bask in everlasting day,
(Paternal splendour!) and adhere for ever.
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 famished hope expire!
How bright my prospect shines! how gloomy thine!
A trembling world! and a devouring god!
Earth but the shambles of omnipotence!
Heav'n's face all stained with causeless massacres
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 naught 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;
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,
Glitt'ring a moment, nor that moment sure;
Midst upper, nether and surrounding night,
His sad, sure, sudden and eternal tomb!