Claim earth and skies man's admiration, due For such delights! Blest animals! too wise To wonder, and too happy to complain! "Our doom decreed demands a mournful scene: 800 Why not a dungeon dark, for the condemn'd? Why not the dragon's subterranean den, For man to howl in? Why not his abode Of the same dismal colour with his fate? A Thebes, a Babylon, at vast expence Of time, toil, treasure, art, for owls and adders, As congruous as, for man, this lofty dome, Which prompts proud thought, and kindles high desire; If, from her humble chamber in the dust, 809 While proud thought swells, and high desire inflames, The poor worm calls us for her inmates there; And, round us, Death's inexorable hand Draws the dark curtain close; undrawn no more. "Undrawn no more!--Behind the cloud of death, Once I beheld a sun; a sun which gilt That sable cloud, and turn'd it all to gold: How the grave's alter'd! fathomless, as hell! A real hell to those who dreamt of heaven. Annihilation! how it yawns before me! Next moment I may drop from thought, from sense, 820 The privilege of angels, and of worms, An outcast from existence! and this spirit, This all-pervading, this all-conscious soul, This particle of energy divine, Which travels nature, flies from star to star, And visits gods, and emulates their powers, For ever is extinguish'd. Horror! death! Death of that death I fearless once survey'd!-- When horror universal shall descend, And heaven's dark concave urn all human race, 830 On that enormous, unrefunding tomb, How just this verse! this monumental sigh!" Beneath the lumber of demolish'd worlds, Deep in the rubbish of the general wreck, Swept ignominious to the common mass Of matter, never dignified with life, Here lie proud rationals; the sons of heaven! The lords of earth! the property of worms! Beings of yesterday, and no to-morrow! Who lived in terror, and in pangs expired! 840 All gone to rot in chaos; or to make Their happy transit into blocks or brutes, 842 Nor longer sully their Creator's name.