Classic Poem

" What am I? and from whence? — I nothing know
But that I am; and, since I am, conclude
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-obtain'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 shore.
Whence earth and these bright orbs? — Eternal too?
Grant matter was eternal; still these orbs
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 masses of enormous weight?
Who bid brute matter's restive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? then each atom,
Asserting its indisputable right
To dance, would form an universe of dust:
Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms
And boundless flights, from shapeless, and repos'd?
Has matter more than motion? has it thought,
Judgment and genius? is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it fram'd such laws,
Which but to guess, a Newton made immortal? —
If so, how each sage atom laughs at me,
Who think a clod inferior to man!
If art, to form; and counsel, to conduct;
And that with greater far than human skill,
Resides not in each block; — a Godhead reigns.
Grant, then, invisible, eternal, Mind;
That granted, all is solv'd — 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! —
Hail, human liberty! There is no God —
Yet why? On either scheme that knot subsists;
Subsist it must, in God, 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
Dispers'd, leave reason's whole horizon clear;
This is not reason's dictate; reason says,
" Close with the side where one grain turns the scale;"
What vast preponderance is here! can reason
With louder voice exclaim — " Believe a God?"
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,
Let it for ever bind him to belief.
And where the link, in which a flaw he finds?
And, if a God there is, that God how great!
How great that power, whom 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!