Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down--on what? a fathomless abyss; A dread eternity! how surely mine! And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour? How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man! How passing wonder He who made him such! 70 Who centred in our make such strange extremes! From different natures marvellously mix'd, Connexion exquisite of distant worlds! Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity! A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb'd! Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine! Dim miniature of greatness absolute! An heir of glory! a frail child of dust! Helpless immortal! insect infinite! 80 A worm! a god!--I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost! At home a stranger, Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, 83 And wondering at her own: how reason reels! O what a miracle to man is man, Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what dread! Alternately transported and alarm'd! What can preserve my life, or what destroy? An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there. 90 'Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof: While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread, What though my soul fantastic measures trod O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathless woods; or down the craggy steep Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool; Or scaled the cliff; or danced on hollow winds, With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain? Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature Of subtler essence than the trodden clod; 100 Active, aerial, towering, unconfined, Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall. Even silent night proclaims my soul immortal: Even silent night proclaims eternal day. For human weal, Heaven husbands all events; Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain. Why then their loss deplore that are not lost? Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around, In infidel distress? Are angels there? Slumbers, raked up in dust, ethereal fire? 110 They live! they greatly live a life on earth Unkindled, unconceived; and from an eye Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall On me, more justly number'd with the dead. This is the desert, this the solitude: How populous, how vital, is the grave! This is creation's melancholy vault, 117 The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom; The land of apparitions, empty shades! All, all on earth, is shadow, all beyond Is substance; the reverse is Folly's creed: How solid all, where change shall be no more! This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, 123