Page:The Sceptic.pdf/16

Rh

And say—"What wouldst thou? Shall the fix’d decree, Made for creation, be reversed for thee?" —Poor, feeble aid!—proud Stoic! ask not why, It is enough, that nature shrinks to die! Enough, that horror, which thy words upbraid, Is her dread penalty, and must be paid! —Search thy deep wisdom, solve the scarce defined And mystic questions of the parting mind, Half check'd, half utter’d—tell her, what shall burst, In whelming grandeur, on her vision first, When freed from mortal films?— what viewless world Shall first receive her wing, but half unfurl'd? What awful and unbodied beings guide Her timid flight through regions yet untried? Say, if at once, her final doom to hear, Before her God the trembler must appear, Or wait that day of terror, when the sea Shall yield its hidden dead, and heaven and earth shall flee?

Hast thou no answer?—Then deride no more The thoughts that shrink, yet cease not to explore Th' unknown, th' unseen, the future—though the heart, As at unearthly sounds, before them start; Though the frame shudder, and the spirit sigh, They have their source in immortality! Whence, then, shall strength, which reason's aid denies, An equal to the mortal conflict rise?