Let laws revive, by heaven designed,
To tame the tiger in the mind
And drive from human hearts
That love of wealth, that love of sway
Which leads the world too much astray,
Which points envenomed darts:
And men will rise from what they are;
Sublimer, and superior, far,
Than Solon guessed, or Plato saw;
All will be just, all will be good—
That harmony, "not understood,"
Will reign the general law.
For, in our race, deranged, bereft,
The parting god some vestige left
Of worth before possessed;
Which full, which fair, which perfect shone
When love and peace, in concord sown,
Ruled, and inspired each breast.
Hence, the small Good which yet we find,
Is shades of that prevailing mind
Which sways the worlds around:—
Let these depart, once disappear,
And earth would all the horrors wear
In hell's dominions found.
Just, as yon' tree, which, bending, grows
To chance, not fate, its fortune owes;
So man from some rude shock,
Some slighted power, some hostile hand,
Has missed the state by Nature planned,
Has split on passion's rock.
Yet shall that tree, when hewed away
(As human woes have had their day)
A new creation find:
The infant shoot in time will swell,
(Sublime and great from that which fell,)
To all that heaven designed.
What is this earth, that sun, these skies;
If all we see, on man must rise,
Forsaken and oppressed—
Why blazes round the eternal beam,
Why, Reason, art thou called supreme,
Where nations find no rest.—
What are the splendours of this ball—
When life is closed, what are they all?
When dust to dust returns
Does power, or wealth, attend the dead;
Are captives from the contest led—
Is homage paid to urns?
What are the ends of Nature's laws;
What folly prompts, what madness draws
Mankind in chains, too strong:—
Nature, to us, confused appears,
On little things she wastes her cares,
The great seem sometimes wrong.
[163] Unique, as far as I can find, in the edition of 1809.