This honest instinct speaks our lineage high; This instinct calls on darkness to conceal Our rapturous relation to the stalls. Our glory covers us with noble shame, And he that's unconfounded, is unmann'd. The man that blushes, is not quite a brute. Thus far with thee, Lorenzo, will I close: Pleasure is good, and man for pleasure made; But pleasure full of glory, as of joy; Pleasure, which neither blushes, nor expires. 500 The witnesses are heard; the cause is o'er; Let Conscience file the sentence in her court, Dearer than deeds that half a realm convey; Thus seal'd by Truth, th' authentic record runs: "Know all; know, infidels,--unapt to know! 'Tis immortality your nature solves; 506 'Tis immortality deciphers man, And opens all the mysteries of his make. Without it, half his instincts are a riddle; Without it, all his virtues are a dream. His very crimes attest his dignity; His sateless thirst of pleasure, gold, and fame, Declares him born for blessings infinite: 513 What less than infinite makes unabsurd Passions, which all on earth but more inflames? Fierce passions, so mismeasured to this scene, Stretch'd out, like eagles' wings, beyond our nest, Far, far beyond the worth of all below, For earth too large, presage a nobler flight, And evidence our title to the skies." 520 Ye gentle theologues, of calmer kind! Whose constitution dictates to your pen, Who, cold yourselves, think ardour comes from hell! Think not our passions from Corruption sprung, Though to Corruption now they lend their wings; That is their mistress, not their mother. All (And justly) Reason deem divine: I see, I feel a grandeur in the passions too, Which speaks their high descent, and glorious end; Which speaks them rays of an eternal fire. 530 In Paradise itself they burn'd as strong, Ere Adam fell; though wiser in their aim. Like the proud Eastern,[35] struck by Providence, What though our passions are run mad, and stoop With low, terrestrial appetite, to graze On trash, on toys, dethroned from high desire? Yet still, through their disgrace, no feeble ray Of greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell: But these (like that fallen monarch when reclaim'd), 539 When Reason moderates the rein aright, Shall reascend, remount their former sphere, Where once they soar'd illustrious; ere seduced By wanton Eve's debauch, to stroll on earth, And set the sublunary world on fire. But grant their phrensy lasts; their phrensy fails To disappoint one providential end, For which Heaven blew up ardour in our hearts: Were Reason silent, boundless Passion speaks A future scene of boundless objects too, And brings glad tidings of eternal day. 550 Eternal day! 'tis that enlightens all;