Heavens! can you then thus waste, in shameful wise, / Your few important days of trial here? / Heirs of eternity! yborn to rise / Through endless states of being, still more near / To bliss approaching, and perfection clear.
Justice were cruel weakly to relent; / From Mercy’s self she got her sacred glaive: / Grace be to those who can and will repent; / But penance long and dreary to the slave.
Resolve, resolve, and to be men aspire. / Exert that noblest privilege, alone / Here to mankind indulged; control desire: / Let godlike Reason, from her sovereign throne, / Speak the commanding word “I will!” and it is done.
Up from unfeeling mould, / To seraphs burning round the Almighty’s throne, / Life rising still on life, in higher tone, / Perfection forms, and with perfection bliss.
What avail the largest gifts of Heaven, / When drooping health and spirits go amiss? / How tasteless then whatever can be given! / Health is the vital principle of bliss, / And exercise of health.
What is the adored Supreme Perfection, say?— / What, but eternal never-resting soul, / Almighty power, and all-directing day; / By whom each atom stirs, the planets roll; / Who fills, surrounds, informs, and agitates the whole.
Who so unworthy but may proudly deck him / With his fair-weather virtue, that exults / Glad o’er the summer main? The tempest comes, / The rough winds rage aloud; when from the helm / This virtue shrinks, and in a corner lies / Lamenting.
