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 | The complete works, poetry and prose, of the Rev. Edward Young prefixed, a life of the author, by John Doran ... With eight illustrations on steel, and a portrait. In two volumes |  |
How bright my prospect shines! How gloomy thine!
A trembling world! and a devouring God!
Earth but the shambles of Omnipotence!
Heaven's face all stain'd with causeless massacres
Of countless millions, born to feel the pang
Of being lost. Lorenzo, can it be?
This bids us shudder at the thoughts of life.
Who would be born to such a phantom world,
Where nought substantial but our misery?
Where joy (if joy) but heightens our distress,
So soon to perish, and revive no more?
The greater such a joy, the more it pains.
A world so far from great, (and yet how great
It shines to thee!) there's nothing real in it;
Being a shadow, consciousness a dream!
A dream how dreadful! Universal blank
Before it and behind! Poor man, a spark
From non-existence struck by wrath Divine,
Glittering a moment, nor that moment sure,
'Midst upper, nether, and surrounding night,
His sad, sure, sudden, and eternal tomb!
A trembling world! and a devouring God!
Earth but the shambles of Omnipotence!
139
Of countless millions, born to feel the pang
Of being lost. Lorenzo, can it be?
This bids us shudder at the thoughts of life.
Who would be born to such a phantom world,
Where nought substantial but our misery?
Where joy (if joy) but heightens our distress,
So soon to perish, and revive no more?
The greater such a joy, the more it pains.
A world so far from great, (and yet how great
It shines to thee!) there's nothing real in it;
Being a shadow, consciousness a dream!
A dream how dreadful! Universal blank
Before it and behind! Poor man, a spark
From non-existence struck by wrath Divine,
Glittering a moment, nor that moment sure,
'Midst upper, nether, and surrounding night,
His sad, sure, sudden, and eternal tomb!
| The complete works, poetry and prose, of the Rev. Edward Young prefixed, a life of the author, by John Doran ... With eight illustrations on steel, and a portrait. In two volumes | |