On Physical and Moral Good and Evil

Adopted free inquiry's plan,
To truths as relative to man,
Wouldst thou, Lorenzo, comprehend
Man's physical and moral end,
To future, to immortal views
Conducted by the faithful muse?
Secure, while yet in reason's sight,
For thee she takes her daring flight;
Borne up on scientific wing,
Attempts her boldest note to sing;
For thee those winding tracts t' explore,
Where seldom muse hath dar'd to soar.

Is there who teach that human woe
Must from a source abstracted flow;
Existing in creation's plan,
Some active ill the curse of man;
Some imperfection, or offence,
In physicks, or in providence?
The question old unanswer'd lies;
"Whence did the curse of evil rise?"
By Wolfius left, and twenty more,
As puzzling as it stood before,
To God or devil still assign'd
The cause of ill by human-kind.

In disobedience to his God,
Did man himself call down the rod?
Or did th' arch-fiend, from heaven that fell,
Inspire the mischief to rebel?
Yet, sure, if pow'r preventive given,
No angel e'er had fell from heaven;
Man had no tempter known to vice;
Serpent, nor Eve, in Paradise.

Lorenzo, in the pride of sense,
Instruction's deem'd impertinence.
She, therefore, daughter of the wise,
Hath long been shelter'd in disguise;
Ent'ring, beneath the mask of sport,
The presence, tho forbid the court:
So fond with young delight to stray,
And moralize the wanton's play,
That ev'n her precepts still prevail
In every favorite gossip's tale.
Yet so that those who seek to learn,
With ease the naked truth discern;
To genius but a pleasing task
To sport with allegory's mask.
The moral, then, from tales deduct;
And let philosophy instruct.

Angelic truths let angels scan:
Ours is the scrutiny of man.
Ours but in reason's bounded course
Allow'd to try our native force;
Confin'd within life's little space
The fleetest genius at the race,
In vain we urge beyond the goal
Th' ideal coursers of the soul.

Art thou, my friend, so ill at ease
That all thy prospects here displease?
Dost thou, in peevishness or pain,
Of nature's system all complain?
Of blunders there, confusion here,
Of heav'n too distant, hell too near?
In mood so splenetic, my friend,
Say what those evils that offend:
Thy doubts propose, thy questions ask,
And take omnisciency to task.

Takes thy sagacity offence
At all thou seest of providence?
Dost thou the constitution blame
Of nature's universal frame,
Dost thou heaven's boasted care, deny
When tempests sweep along the sky;
Thy feather'd geese when whirlwinds bear
Aloft, and scatter, wide in air;
Or from the hills impetuous rains
Descend and strip th' autumnal plains?
Concluding the machinery vile
When earthquakes shake our stable isle,
When Etna and Vesuvius flame;
To nature each a burning shame!
Finds thy philosophy as soon
Faulty th' attraction of the moon,
When death resistless, roaring rides
In triumph o'er the swelling tides,
Or bathing in destruction, drowns
Flocks, herds and men and helpless towns;
Or bears them off some mountain steep
All headlong down, to glut the deep?

Or is thy wiser censure bent
Against some comet's dire event?
In time to come, time out of mind,
To fall into the sun design'd;
Suspicious that, if planets turn:
To comets, ours at length may burn;
And we be doom'd, some sultry day,
To fierce devouring f[...]ames a prey!
Lorenzo, is this strain admir'd,
Here mayst thou rail till sense be tir'd.
But judge not thou, like sophists vain,
Of gen'ral good by partial gain:
Thinking when cross'd our stubborn will
Such is a providential ill.
For know, no abstract cause exists
And battles in creation's lists,
A formal enemy to man,
Since nature's tournaments began,
Inflam'd with enmity and power
God's human likeness to devour.
No,—'tis impossible a cause
Should counteract creation's laws,
The hand of providence arrest,
Or heaven's determin'd pow'r contest:
As one or other must prevail,
And one, or both together, fail.
But nature knows no real strife,
However jarring human life,
From evil and from error free;
These only relative to thee,
In icy chains let winter bind
The glebe untrod by human-kind,
Fierce light'nings flash, and thunders roll
Their horrours only round the pole;
Let Malstrooms roar, and Heclas blaze
Where fools nor cowards stand to gaze:
Let islands drown; let mountains melt;
These were no evils if unfelt.
'Mid southern seas and lands unknown
Should agonizing nature groan,
There only, ease her future throes,
And harmless terrours round disclose;
Earthquakes would lose their evil name,
And heaven no longer bear the blame:
Tho evils row we loudly call
Lima's, and Ulysippo's, fall.

Lorenzo, of creation's plan
But parts are visible to man;
Whence, ign'rant of their various use,
We think them subject to abuse;
Tho all with art consummate join,
Conducive to heaven's main design.
As parts to complex engines prove,
Inspir'd by mechanism to move,
This retrogade, and that direct,
In diff'rent modes to one effect;
So, howsoe'er they clash to sense,
The sev'ral springs of providence,
In concert, at their maker's will,
Their ends harmoniously fulfil:
Upheld the weight, let fall the rod,
As urges the first mover, God.

How blind are, then, the smatt'rihg fools,
Just taught their geometric rules,
The simple use of rule and line,
To these who nature would confine?
Its laws who else capricious call,
Or say "it acts by none at all;'
"The macrocosm's vast engine made
"By one that knew not half his trade;
"Its bungling engineer at hand,
"To help it forward, at a stand."
Impious! like Marli's, doth it take
The pains to mend it did to make,
Requiring endless cost and care
To hold in tenable repair?
Ah! no, howe'er to us it seem,
Creation is a perfect scheme.

Lorenzo, let not words deceive.
All imperfection's relative;
Since from conceiv'd amendments came
The patch-work we perfection name;
A term for something understood
Productive still of mortals' good.
But, of perfection absolute
All nature is, beyond dispute;
For all from God is here deriv'd,
And all is perfect God contriv'd.
"Man's surely perfect then" you cry.
As man, most perfect, I reply:
The creature of his Maker's will,
Form'd his good pleasure to fulfil;
Destin'd in th' universal plan
To fill his place, and act, as man.
What tho on earth the human mind
Involv'd in ignorance we find,
Impassion'd, fickle, giv'n to pride,
Nor resting e'er self-satisfied;
Doth pow'r comparative t' improve
Perfection positive remove!
As well imperfect might we say
The rising sun at early day.
Since with superiour heat and light
It blazes in meridian height.
Form'd with progressive pow'rs to rise
From out the dust to tread the skies,
Perfect as such humanity
However lowly in degree.
How ignorant and weak are those
Who nature's author, then, suppose
In providence remains a spy,
To guard his work with watchful eye;
From fallen angels' base intent
The direful outrage to prevent;
To rescue, or preserve, his plan
From that prodigious creature, man.
Like the young steed, that scours the plain,
Is nature wild, and needs a rein?
Or halts she like a founder'd jade;
Lame by her frequent stumbling made?

Perhaps, Lorenzo, some mistake,
Concerning provideace, we make;
The pow'rs of nature to divide
From its imaginary guide;
For, if creation has, in fact,
Been long ago a finish'd act,
What end doth lab'ring time pursue?
Or what hath providence in view?
For sure thou wilt not take the side
Of those, whose ignorance and pride
Maintain the universe design'd
Merely to gratify mankind:
A stage, as on a stroller's cart,
Where drolls itin'rant play their part,
In grinning mirth, or brawling strife:
The tragi-comedy of life!

Was, then, heav'n's wond'rous pow'r display'd;
This system in perfection made,
Only to wear itself away?
Stupendous frame! for mere decay!
Its worlds to wander thro the void,
Destroying, till themselves destroy'd;
Or, in some future, fabled, days,
To take imaginary blaze
At flames, that all to ruin turn,
Annihilating as they burn?
Risk'd, then, the censure of my wit,
I hold the world unfinish'd yet:
Time building what heaven's wisdom plann'd,
Creation's work ev'n yet in hand.
Thro nature's scenes in order range;
See all things in continual change;
All to some point progressive run,
To do, or else to be undone:
Existing for so short a space,
Thousands we know but by their place,
Which chang'd, by changing form, we say
The things themselves are pass'd away.
No proofs of Being objects bring,
Whose essence ever on the wing,
Flown from their forms, ere yet defin'd,
Leaves no identity behind.

But waving this, yet find we here
No abstract: cause of ill, to fear:
Since on the feelings of mankind
Depends the ev'ry ill we find:
Whence, tho our suff'rings ill we call,
They've no abstracted cause at all:
For, stript creation of mankind,
No evil would be left behind.

To this will cavillers reply?
"We ask not where those causes lie;
"If in externals be th' oiffence,
"Or in the pravity of sense:
"That real ill exists is plain,
"While man is sensible of pain."
In answer, my Lorenzo, here,
No vaunting stoicism fear:
Nor think thy friend so madly wise
T' affeft his mis'ries to despise.
I ne'er presume that point to reach,
Nor 'gainst the voice of nature preach:
None feel more tenderly than I:
Mine the soft heart and wat'ry eye,
The sanguine hopes, the groundless fears;
Still unsubdu'd by sense or years;
Ah, too susceptible of pain
When vice, or folly, bat complain!
Yet, ev'n while tears of anguish flow,
I hold no abstract ill we know.
'Tis true, my friend, no man alive
Could, in his senses, gravely strive
The wretch in torture to persuade
Of evil not to be afraid;
The murd'rer, mangled on the wheel,
To smile at harmless rope and steel;
Or that the blows, that loitering kill.
Cannot be physically ill.
Asurd, the argument, and vain!
Since all we know of ill is pain.

And yet, as; neither griev'd nor pain'd,
Of evil man had ne'er complain'd;
If, relative, our bliss and woe
Reciprocally ebb and flow,
'Tis palpable that joy and strife
Are but the modes of human life;
Which varied with consummate skill
May, on the whole, be good nor ill.

Sayst thou the learned are agreed
The ills of life the good exceed?
Lorenzo, peevish, sick, or vain,
How nat'ral is it to complain!
But fure experience here denies
This thread-bare maxim of the wise.
Behold the weak, the blind, the lame,
The sons of poverty and shame,
The wretch, expiring by degrees
By amputations or disease;
Such whose vile lot, the world their foe,
Contempt and beggary below:
Shouldst thou to this, or that, propose
In death a cure for all their woes;
Tell 'em, oppress'd with human strife,
"Wide stand the num'rous doors'of life,
"With open arms, the wretch to save,
"Rest welcomes mis'ry to the grave."
How few your recipe will try;
Tho dying piece-meal, loth to die.
Nor merely from the fear of worse,
Tenacious of a present curse.
For say annihilation here
The all poor mortals have to fear,
How few would yet their ills incline
Their sense of being to resign;
To part, on terms like these, from pain.
With pleasure ne'er to meet again;
Ev'n nature shudders at the thought,
To sink inconscious into naught;
In mere existence sure mankind
Must then intrinsic pleasure find;
Some good equivalent must feel
To such suppos'd excess of ill;
Since thus, in death, so loth to part
The aching head and bleeding heart.

May not, indeed, all human woe
Be ballanc'd by our joys below?
Dost them, Lorenzo, doubt of this?
How dost thou measure earthly bliss?
'Tis not by extasy alone
Thy actual share of joy is known:
Duration adds to the degree
As much as its intensity.
Joy for a moment's space how small!
Pain instantaneous, none at all;
Thro life continued little less
Ev'n bare content than happiness:
The joyous extasy of bliss
Dilating rarified to this.
Be it on individuals tried;
Each needs but to be satisfied:
The longing wish, the sigh is o'er
When once content; we ask no more.
Thus equal joy we often taste
In short-liv'd pleasures, snatch'd in haste,
As others, or, when raptur'd less,
For years, ev'n we, ourselves, possess.
Hence oft asserted in dispute
That time ideas constitute;
Sense of duration so confin'd
To that which passes in the mind.
Th' expectant lover, thinks, in rage,
His Stella's absent hour an age;
While short and sweet the moments fly,
When love and she sit smiling by:
Nor giv'n their epithets in vain
To fleeting joy, and lingering pain,
In minutes flown each joyful day,
Each sad one whil'd in hours away.
Nay, tho of life tenacious all,
Longevity no bliss we call.
In diff'rent animals, at least,
The less the greater's constant feast,
'Tis probable their joys and strife
Are suited to their term of life.
Whence equal pleasure, equal pain,
May long-liv'd elephants sustain
With young ephemerons, whose flight,
At noon beginning, ends at night;
During which momentary space,
They rise, love, battle, and embrace,
Flutt'ring around, till, out of breath,
They drop into the arms of death.

From felf-experience dost thou rate
The real hardship of thy fate?
Art thou with ev'ry friend at strife?
Seest thou no gentle joy in life?
Dost thou no fav'rite scheme possess,
That yields contemplative success?
Hast thou no hope; no good dost choose,
A good, thou wouldst not die to lose?
Thy day, thus clouded at the dawn,
Will brighter shine, its clouds withdrawn:
Or, is thy morn of sun-shine past?
With clouds thy ev'ning's overcast:
Wouldst of its brightness know th' amount?
Bring morn and ev'ning to account.

Stands nature then, so long abus'd,
Of abstract evil thus excus'd?
As little truth is understood
By those, who hold all nature good.
"Whatever is, is right."—It may;
But therefore good we cannot say;
Unless some general bliss we see
Arise from partial misery.
In spite of truth, in reason's spite
When vex'd, or pain'd, we all deny't;
Ne'er, till the pain be o'er, confessing
That was, which never is, a blessing.
The term's, then, here misunderstood.
Right's not equivocal to good;
Goodness adapted and confin'd
To th' appetites of human-kind;
The right, unknown to you or me:
Tho sure what is is fit to be!
Let Plato, then, or Leibnitz prate
Of goodnsess influencing fate;
Or idle sophists still contest
Their boasted principle the best:
By disputants, or either side,
The partial term is misapplied.
That God is good they know full well;
But what his goodness none can tell:
Unless to man, his kindness shown
His good's dependent on our own.

Lorenzo, merely to mankind
Thus evil physical confin'd;
Of moral next, a puzzling task,
An explanation dost thou ask?
Sayst thou "Heaven's care no more extends
"To physical than moral ends;
"The same the providential power,
"That rains the soft, refreshing shower.
"That, in the womb of teeming earth,
"Its atoms quickens into birth,
"Doth in the moral scene connect
"The cause and consequent effect;
"On virtue peace of heart bestows;
"Softens the good man's casual woes;
"Abandons vice to fell despair;
"Or plagues with heart-corroding care:"
Concluding hence "that moral ill,
"Opposing nature's righteous will,
"Aloud for heaven's dread vengeance calls,
"The curse that on the guilty falls."
So far, Lorenzo, I with thee,
In part most readily agree;
That vice will leave a sting behind,
And virtue its reward shall find;
Yet all, with good St. Paul, confess
"Without a law we can't transgress."
Now nature's law is heaven's command;
Whose will no mortal can withstand.
How! lives earth's animated clod
To contravene the will of God?
As well, advent'rous of his neck,
The laws of gravity to break,
Presumptuous man might seek to fly,
A creeping earth-worm, to the sky;
Or don the bishop's winged shoon,
To trip it yarely to the moon.
What curse soe'er then vice provoke,
Creation's laws can ne'er be broke.

But know, by physical alone
Is moral good or evil known;
For, had not vice the pow'r to vex,
Its evil never would perplex.
Each moral thus a partial ill,
Permitted by th' eternal will;
To mortals relative th' offence
And punishments of providence.

Lorenzo, state the matter clear.
Be pain and pleasure strangers here.
Strangers to pleasures and to pain,
What motives had we to complain?
Suppose we, then, in nature's plan,
T' exist th' antomaton of man,
Rising from senseless matter's arms,
Which perfect rest nor grieves, nor charms;
Should heaven a consciousness bestow,
Subject to good or ill below;
Not real pain or pleasure give,
But only make the form to live:
As yet from all reflection clear,
Unnerv'd by hope, unaw'd by fear,
Suppose to action thus consign'd
This naked, unaffected mind.
Lorenzo, with precision hence
Let us infer the consequence.
Ere yet existed moral ill,
The first sole agent was the will;
Reason without the pow'r to act,
To censure or advise a fact;
As from experience nought it knew,
Of good or bad, or false or true:
For reason its conclusion draws
From similar effect and cause;
No instinct, faculty or sense,
Securing actual innocence,
That bids us virtue's steps pursue,
Or points to bliss it never knew:
Else giving reason bounteous heaven
Had also actual pleasure given:
This not suppos'd, —hence reason's use
Some known effect must introduce.
Now, as innate, if we maintain
A love of bliss and hate of pain,
Directed as the passions fir'd,
The will to pleasure first aspir'd;
The moral agent bound to chuse
From nature's most immediate views.
But, prone to censure and complain,
Suppose our first sensation pain;
Let pain or pleasure be attain'd,
Of both an equal sense was gain'd;
As the first tree of knowledge bore
Of good and evil equal store;
For when the mind one pleasure knew,
Its neutral state of rest withdrew;
Pleasure and pain, by contrast known,
Criteria of each other grown.
Hence felt th' initiated mind
The sting which pleasure left behind,
And reason did to act commence
On th' information of the sense;
Still as the passions ebb and flow,
Now swoln with bliss, now sunk in woe,
Tracing the bounds, th' extremes between,
Of innocence, that golden mean.
But ah, the fluctuating tide
Of passion doth this mean deride:
Consistent only, 'tis confess'd,
With nature in a state of rest.

Here then from moral actions came
The necessary ill, we blame:
Running self-love, in full career,
Reason her guide not always near,
Her satisfaction oft pursuing,
Tho at her own and others' ruin.
Th' indulgence of the human will,
We hence presume is moral ill,
Whene'er from such indulgence flows
More pain than pleasure it bestows.

In guilt original involv'd,
Here see the wond'rous myst'ry solv'd.
To the first man no more confin'd
Than passions found in ev'ry mind,
Is, the plain cause of moral woe,
Sin, human frailty here below.
Lorenzo, evil understood,
The die's reverse is moral good:
Whate'er more pleasure yields than pain
The name of goodness doth obtain.

Unsatisfied, Lorenzo, yet,
Dost thou lost happiness regret?
Doth, from our plan of morals, seem
Still providence no perfect scheme,
Because, perplex'd with fear or pain,
Ev'n virtue covets bliss in vain?
Dost thou against the cause object?
"'Tis disproportion'd to th' effect,
"Thus in th' intemp'rance of the will
"To place the source of moral ill:
"Our passions but a nat'ral cause,
"Obedient to creation's laws,
"Here palpably too innocent
"The cause of mis'ry to be meant."
Must I repeat it o'er again?
From pleasure flows our sense of pain.
Dependent these as light and shade,
Thro life, each other's contrast made.
Whence, tho to moderation join'd
Content's serenity of mind,

While vice but sports with higher glee
To sink as low in misery,
Proportion'd to the guilty joy
The pangs intemperance annoy;
Yet, on the whole, no abstract ill
Doth here confront th' eternal will;
Of evil all th' effected strife
But relative to human life.

Sayst thou indeed "if man confin'd
"To fill the place by heaven assign'd,
"But partially to rise, or fall,
"Why feels he misery at all?"
Another question answers this.
What title have mankind to bliss?
During thy life if, man and boy,
Thy share of both thou mayst enjoy;
If perfect rest the certain mean
Our pleasures and our pains between;
Null the momentum of our pain;
Who shall of providence complain?

Seest thou incumbering the ground,
The barren fig-trees branching round;
While virtue stands the brunt of vice,
And knaves possess fools' paradise?
'Tis here indeed our errour lies;
Our virtues we too highly prize;
And adequate rewards to find,
Create them fondly to our mind:
Not satisfied on heaven to trust,
Or think its dispensations just,
Unless his conduct God submit
To our investigating wit;
Here toiling, as an humble drudge,
For man, his critick, lord and judge.
What merit in thy maker's eye
That thou vain man art six feet high;
To heaven must all, with shame, agree
Unprofitable servants we;
Unworthy of celestial dress
The rags of human righteousness;
The all that virtue has to boast,
Claiming the world's regard, at most.

As virtue here so vice depends.
Ourselves our guilt the most offends.
For know, proud man, no act of thine
Renders defective God's design:
No pow'r to human frailty given
To injure unpreventing heaven.
Presume not at so high a price
To rate th' iniquity of vice.
Nor let the vainly-virtuous fool,
Projecting heaven by line and rule,
Sore lash'd and wasting to the bone,
The crimes of health and ease t' atone,
Conceive by want of rest or meat
Th' eternal purpose to defeat.
Presume not at so cheap a rate
To hold th' omnipotence of fate.

Yet who shall say that guilt is free,
Or promise vice impunity?
Since 'tis so plain the sting of woe
To joy inordinate doth grow;
While none from virtue's paths would stray
If pleasure did not lead the way.
Can virtue also hence despair?
Since virtue's providence's care;
Compensing pleasure due to pain,
Nor this nor that bestow'd in vain.

Let fools, when hard their present lot,
Think distant heaven has earth forgot;
In discontent aloud complain,
"That all our trust in heaven is vain,"
Pretending God the world protects,
And yet its sev'ral parts neglects.
Do thou, Lorenzo, better taught,
Never indulge so wild a thought;
Conceiving th' individual man
No charge on nature's gen'ral plan.
What tho impossible that we
At once the whole and parts should see;
To single objects here confin'd
Th' attention of the human mind;
Yet, shall we blasphemously join
Heaven's intellects with yours and mine?
Know thou the world's great architect
Its smallest part shall not neglect;
As needful in the stately pile,
As golden roofs th' abutments vile;
Nor, in their kind, more perfect they,
The parian stones, than potter's clay.
How sadly, blundering in the dark,
Here St. John miss'd his boasted mark;
"When, heaven's omnipotence t'enhance,
He almost gave the world to chance:
Supposing God too great to mind
The peccadillos of mankind;
Too insignificant our claim
To Deity's immediate aim.
Or rather, from his reasons given,
He thought the task too great for heaven;
Too puzzling for th' eternal wit
To hold its state and thus submit;
Wherefore, like th' idiot at a loss
To count, heaven takes us in the gross.
Lorenzo, probable the scheme,
However strange the doctrine seem,
Whate'er the next world give, in this
That virtue hath its share of bliss;
While all accounts 'tween, vice and woe
Are settled and discharg'd below:
No ballance to receive or pay,
Left, shuffling, for a future day.
Go, make an estimate of life;
Compare the sums of joy and strife;
Each in its separate degree,
Duration and intensity.
Perhaps, upon the whole, you'll find
That nothing's due to human kind;
Nor loss nor profit in the trade
Of transient pains and pleasures made.
Mean-time how difficult to guess
At real objects of distress!
How difficult, in fact, to trace
Where real pleasure hath a place!
See, shuddering at September's frost,
In clothes of fur, duke Chilly lost;
Lamenting, with his belly full,
The tinker's half-cloath'd, starving trull;
A jade, that, warmer than his grace,
Laughs at his pity to his face.
Accustom'd to the melting mood,
So, wishing ev'ry mortal good,
Behold Tendrilla drown her eyes
At what the sufferers despise.
How oft, the scene revers'd, again,
Apparent bliss is actual pain!
How oft we hear much-envied state
Groan beneath bulky grandeur's weight;
Of thousands broke their nightly rest
By that for which we call them blest!
Nay, as a God on earth ador'd,
See the dread inquisition's lord,
Rais'd, in the pomp of priestly pride,
How envied, by his monarch's side!
And yet how mis'rable a part
He acts, if not extinct his heart:
How little less, at nature's cost
If ev'ry social feeling lost.
Mean-while the wretch, for whom we sigh,
In cruel tortures doom'd to die,
To pain superiour, fear or shame,
Exulting, smiles amidst the flame,
Makes his proud judge with malice swell;
And triumphs over death and hell.

Proportion'd to the weight of care,
Gives nature thus the pow'r to bear?
But partial judges we, 'tis plain,
Of others' joy or others' pain.
So vice and virtue could we trace,
Neither is stamp'd upon the face;
And who to read presumes the art
The secret of another's heart?
Nay, ev'n that art how little known
To open, and peruse our own!
Who then, so much slave to sense,
Shall here arraign heaven's providence;
Thinking "the good the world may leave
"Ere virtue's portion they receive;
"Triumphant that the wicked go,
"Blest, or unpunish'd, here below:
"As if our end a slight event,
"Depending on mere accident."
Is this not atheism in the eye
Of those who atheism most decry?

Who made the world, with equal skill
Can surely guide it, if he will.
Who, then, appearances shall trust,
To think that heaven's on earth unjust;
When vice and virtue may relate
Solely to man's sublunar state;
And here, for ought we truly know,
Be paid their dues of joy and woe.

Yet think not thou I here deny
That virtuous souls ascend the sky;
Or that the grov'ling sons of vice
Shall be excluded paradise.
Prepar'd, my friend, the man, in life,
By varied means of joy and strife,
Or, by redemption's wond'rous grace,
To view his maker face to face,
In death compleated for the state
Design'd him by the will of fate,
A place of constant rest may find
The portion of the virtuous mind;
A place, comparatively ill,
For those whose god their brutal will:
By heaven th' immortal Being plac'd.
Consistent with its pow'rs and taste.
Such future scenes may sure be given;
This call'd a hell and that a heaven;
And justly vice and virtue, here,
Have that to hope and this to fear.

Still do I hear the growl of care?
"To be we know not what or where!"
Is it, because we know not why,
So sad a thing for once to die?
Is it so hazardous, my friend,
On God our maker to depend?
That God to whom we being owe,
Our friend and guardian here below?
Who, all along the vale of life,
In ev'ry scene of care and strife,
Affords his providential arm,
To raise beneath, or shield from, harm?
Is it for him so hard to save
Our conscious Being from the grave?
Secure, Lorenzo, in the pow'r,
That wak'd me at my natal hour,
To me, and mine, in life so just,
On this in life I mean to trust:
Safe in the hollow of his hand,
Content to fall by whom I stand,
Of whom I kiss the chast'ning rod,
And bless the father in the God.