University of Virginia Library

Lorenzo, these are thoughts that make man Man,
The wise illumine, aggrandize the great.
How great, (while yet we tread the kindred clod,
And every moment fear to sink beneath
The clod we tread, soon trodden by our sons,)
How great, in the wild whirl of Time's pursuits,
To stop, and pause; involved in high presage,
Through the long vista of a thousand years,
To stand contemplating our distant selves,
As in a magnifying mirror seen,
Enlarged, ennobled, elevate, Divine!
To prophesy our own futurities,
To gaze in thought on what all thought transcends!
To talk, with fellow-candidates, of joys
As far beyond conception as desert,
Ourselves the' astonish'd talkers, and the tale!