By Nature, as her common habit, worn; So pressing Providence a truth to teach, Which truth untaught, all other truths were vain. Thou! whose all-providential eye surveys, 660 Whose hand directs, whose Spirit fills and warms Creation, and holds empire far beyond! Eternity's inhabitant august! Of two eternities amazing Lord! One past, ere man's, or angel's, had begun Aid! while I rescue from the foe's assault Thy glorious immortality in man: A theme for ever, and for all, of weight, Of moment infinite! but relish'd most By those who love Thee most, who most adore. 670 Nature, thy daughter, ever-changing birth Of Thee the Great Immutable, to man Speaks wisdom, is his oracle supreme; And he who most consults her, is most wise. Lorenzo, to this heavenly Delphos haste; And come back all-immortal, all-divine: Look nature through, 'tis revolution all; All change; no death. Day follows night; and night The dying day; stars rise, and set, and rise; Earth takes th' example. See, the summer gay, 680 With her green chaplet, and ambrosial flowers, Droops into pallid autumn: winter grey, Horrid with frost, and turbulent with storm, Blows autumn, and his golden fruits, away: Then melts into the spring: soft spring, with breath Favonian, from warm chambers of the south, Recalls the first. All, to re-flourish, fades; As in a wheel, all sinks, to re-ascend. Emblems of man, who passes, not expires. With this minute distinction, emblems just, 690 Nature revolves, but man advances; both Eternal, that a circle, this a line. That gravitates, this soars. Th' aspiring soul, Ardent, and tremulous, like flame, ascends, 694 Zeal and humility her wings, to heaven. The world of matter, with its various forms, All dies into new life. Life born from death Rolls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll. No single atom, once in being, lost, With change of counsel charges the Most High. What hence infers Lorenzo? Can it be? Matter immortal? And shall Spirit die? 702 Above the nobler, shall less noble rise? Shall Man alone, for whom all else revives, No resurrection know? Shall Man alone, Imperial Man! be sown in barren ground, Less privileged than grain, on which he feeds? Is Man, in whom alone is power to prize The bliss of being, or with previous pain Deplore its period, by the spleen of fate, 710 Severely doom'd Death's single unredeem'd? If Nature's revolution speaks aloud, In her gradation, hear her louder still. Look nature through, 'tis neat gradation all. By what minute degrees her scale ascends! Each middle nature join'd at each extreme, To that above it join'd, to that beneath. Parts, into parts reciprocally shot, Abhor divorce: what love of union reigns!