Preposterous madmen, void of fear or shame,
Lay their crimes bare to these chaste eyes of Heaven;
Yet shrink, and shudder, at a mortal’s sight.
Were moon, and stars, for villains only made?
To guide, yet screen them, with tenebrious[62] light?
No; they were made to fashion the sublime 966
Of human hearts, and wiser make the wise.
Those ends were answer’d once; when mortals lived
Of stronger wing, of aquiline ascent
In theory sublime. O how unlike