This mouldering, old, partition-wall throw down? Give beings, one in nature, one abode? O Death divine! that givest us to the skies! 660 Great future! glorious patron of the past, And present! when shall I thy shrine adore? From nature's continent, immensely wide, Immensely bless'd, this little isle of life, This dark, incarcerating colony, 665 Divides us. Happy day! that breaks our chain; That manumits;[15] that calls from exile home; That leads to nature's great metropolis, And re-admits us, through the guardian hand Of elder brothers, to our Father's throne; Who hears our Advocate, and, through his wounds Beholding man, allows that tender name. 672 'Tis this makes Christian triumph a command: 'Tis this makes joy a duty to the wise; 'Tis impious in a good man to be sad. See thou, Lorenzo! where hangs all our hope? Touch'd by the Cross, we live; or, more than die; That touch which touch'd not angels; more divine Than that which touch'd confusion into form, And darkness into glory; partial touch! 680 Ineffably pre-eminent regard! Sacred to man, and sovereign through the whole Long golden chain of miracles, which hangs From heaven through all duration, and supports In one illustrious and amazing plan, Thy welfare, nature! and thy God's renown. That touch, with charm celestial, heals the soul Diseased, drives pain from guilt, lights life in death, Turns earth to heaven, to heavenly thrones transforms The ghastly ruins of the mouldering tomb. 690 Dost ask me when? When He who died returns; Returns, how changed! Where then the man of woe? In glory's terrors all the Godhead burns; And all his courts, exhausted by the tide Of deities triumphant in his train, Leave a stupendous solitude in heaven; Replenish'd soon, replenish'd with increase Of pomp, and multitude; a radiant band 698 Of angels new; of angels from the tomb. Is this by fancy thrown remote? and rise Dark doubts between the promise and event? I send thee not to volumes for thy cure; Read nature; nature is a friend to truth; Nature is Christian; preaches to mankind; And bids dead matter aid us in our creed. Hast thou ne'er seen the comet's flaming flight? Th' illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds On gazing nations; from his fiery train Of length enormous, takes his ample round 709 Through depths of ether; coasts unnumber'd worlds, Of more than solar glory; doubles wide Heaven's mighty cape; and then revisits earth, From the long travel of a thousand years. Thus, at the destined period, shall return He, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze: And, with him, all our triumph o'er the tomb. Nature is dumb on this important point; Or hope precarious in low whisper breathes;