From worldly cares; and bid our spirits bring
Faith to imbibe deep wisdom from your lay.
So may those blesséd vernal strains renew
Childhood, a childhood yet more pure and true
E'en than the first, within the awakened mind;
While sweetly, joyously, they tell of life,
That knows no doubts, no questionings, no strife,
But hangs upon its God, unconsciously resigned.
forever to your skies departed?
Oh! will ye visit this dim world no more?
Ye, whose bright wings a solemn splendour darted Through Eden's fresh and flowering shades of yore? Now are the fountains dried on that sweet spot,
our faded earth beholds you not!
But may ye not, unseen, around us hover,
With gentle promptings and sweet influence yet, Though the fresh glory of those days be over,
When, 'midst the palm-trees, man your footsteps met? Are ye not near when faith and hope rise high, When love, by strength, o'ermasters agony?
THE DEATHLESS SOUL NOT TO BE IMPOVERISHED IN THE BODY'S SERVICE.
POOR Soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Fooled by those rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store!
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross!
Within be fed, without be rich no more!
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And, death once dead, there's no more dying then.
FROM THE "NIGHT THOUGHTS."
WHY then their loss deplore, that are not lost?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,
In infidel distress? Are angels there?
The psychology of Young is at variance with his theology. The former is liberal and noble; leading to inferences directly hostile to the doctrine of any punishment hereafter apart from that which must be self-inflicted by the soul until it conforms itself to the divine laws. Truly and forcibly has Young remarked, in his Preface to Night the Sixth, -"The dispute about religion, and the practice of it, seldom go together. The shorter, therefore, the dispute, the better. I think it may be reduced to this single question, Is man immortal, or is he not? If he is not, all our disputes are mere amusements, or trials of skill. * I have been long persuaded that most, if not all, our infidels are supported in their deplorable error by some doubt of their immortality at the bottom. And I am satisfied, that men, once thoroughly convinced of their immortality, are not far from being Christians."
Slumbers, raked up in dust, ethereal fire?-
They live! they greatly live a life, on earth
Unkindled, unconceived; and from an eye
Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall
On me, more justly numbered with the dead.
All, all on earth is shadow, all beyond
Is substance; the reverse is Folly's creed.
How solid all, where change shall be no more!
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,
The twilight of our day, the vestibule :
Life's theatre as yet is shut, and Death,
Strong Death alone, can heave the massy bar,
This gross impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryos of existence free!
Life makes the soul dependent on the dust,
Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres.
Through chinks, styled organs, dim life peeps at light;
Death bursts th' involving cloud, and all is day;
All eye, all ear, the disembodied power.
Death has feigned evils, Nature shall not feel;
Life, ill substantial, Wisdom cannot shun.
Is not the mighty mind, that son of Heaven
By tyrant Life, dethroned, imprisoned, pained?
By Death enlarged, ennobled, deified?
Death but entombs the body; Life the soul !
Death is the crown of life.
Death wounds to cure: we fall, we rise, we reign!
Spring from our fetters, fasten in the skies.
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost!
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When shall I die?
When shall I live forever?
O thou great Arbiter of life and death!
Nature's immortal, immaterial Sun!
Whose all-prolific beam late called me forth
From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay,
The worm's inferior, and, in rank, beneath
The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,
And triumph in existence; and could know
No motive but my bliss; and hast ordained
A rise in blessing! With the patriarch's joy,
Thy call I follow to the land unknown;
I trust in Thee, and know in whom I trust;
Or life, or death is equal; neither weighs;
All weight is this: O let me live to Thee!
Angels are men in lighter habit clad.
Nor are our brothers thoughtless of their kin;
Yet absent, but not absent from their love.
Michael has fought our battles; Raphael sung
Our triumphs; Gabriel on our errands flown,
Sent by the Sovereign: and are these, O man!
Thy friends, thy warm allies, and thou (shame burn
Thy cheek to cinder!) rival to the brute ?
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