Begins, and ends, their woe: they die but once; Bless'd, incommunicable privilege! for which Proud man, who rules the globe, and reads the stars, Philosopher, or hero, sighs in vain. Account for this prerogative in brutes. No day, no glimpse of day, to solve the knot, But what beams on it from eternity. 312 O sole and sweet solution! that unties The difficult, and softens the severe; The cloud on nature's beauteous face dispels; Restores bright order; casts the brute beneath; And re-enthrones us in supremacy Of joy, even here: admit immortal life, And virtue is knight-errantry no more; Each virtue brings in hand a golden dower, 320 Far richer in reversion: Hope exults; And though much bitter in our cup is thrown, Predominates, and gives the taste of heaven. O wherefore is the Deity so kind? Astonishing beyond astonishment! Heaven our reward--for heaven enjoy'd below. Still unsubdued thy stubborn heart?--for there The traitor lurks who doubts the truth I sing. Reason is guiltless; will alone rebels. What, in that stubborn heart, if I should find 330 New, unexpected witnesses against thee? Ambition, pleasure, and the love of gain! Canst thou suspect that these, which make the soul The slave of earth, should own her heir of heaven? Canst thou suspect what makes us disbelieve Our immortality, should prove it sure? First, then, Ambition summon to the bar. Ambition's shame, extravagance, disgust 338 And inextinguishable nature, speak. Each much deposes; hear them in their turn. Thy soul, how passionately fond of fame! How anxious, that fond passion to conceal! We blush, detected in designs on praise, Though for best deeds, and from the best of men: And why? Because immortal. Art divine Has made the body tutor to the soul; Heaven kindly gives our blood a moral flow; Bids it ascend the glowing cheek, and there Upbraid that little heart's inglorious aim, Which stoops to court a character from man; 350 While o'er us, in tremendous judgment sit Far more than man, with endless praise, and blame. Ambition's boundless appetite outspeaks The verdict of its shame. When souls take fire At high presumptions of their own desert, One age is poor applause; the mighty shout, The thunder by the living few begun, Late time must echo; worlds unborn resound. We wish our names eternally to live: Wild dream! which ne'er had haunted human thought, Had not our natures been eternal too. 361 Instinct points out an interest in hereafter; But our blind reason sees not where it lies; Or, seeing, gives the substance for the shade. Fame is the shade of immortality, And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught, Contemn'd; it shrinks to nothing in the grasp. Consult th' ambitious, 'tis ambition's cure.