To earth I should have fallen in my despair,
Had I not clasped the Cross, and been supported

there.

44.

My heart, I thought, was bursting with the force
Of that most fatal fruit; soul-sick I felt;
And tears ran down in such continuous course,
As if the very eyes themselves should melt.
But then I heard my heavenly teacher say,
"Drink, and this mortal stound will pass away."

45.

I stooped, and drank of that divinest Well,
Fresh from the Rock of Ages where it ran;
It had a heavenly quality to quell

My pain: I rose a renovated man,

And would not now, when that relief was known, For worlds the needful suffering have foregone.

46.

Even as the Eagle (ancient storyers say),

When, faint with years, she feels her flagging wing, Soars up toward the mid-sun's piercing ray, Then, filled with fire, into some living spring Plunges, and, casting there her aged plumes, The vigorous strength of primal youth resumes;

47.

Such change in me that blessed Water wrought: The bitterness which, from its fatal root,

The Tree derived, with painful healing fraught,
Passed clean away; and in its place the fruit
Produced, by virtue of that wondrous wave,
The savor which in Paradise it gave.

48.

"Now," said the heavenly Muse, "thou mayst ad

vance,

Fitly prepared, toward the mountain's height. O Child of Man! this necessary trance

Hath purified from flaw thy mortal sight, That, with scope unconfined of vision free, Thou the beginning and the end mayst see.”

49.

She took me by the hand, and on we went;

Hope urged me forward, and my soul was strong:
With winged speed we scaled the steep ascent;
Nor seemed the labor difficult or long,

Ere on the summit of the sacred hill
Upraised I stood, where I might gaze my fill.

50.

Below me lay, unfolded like a scroll,

The boundless region where I wandered late, Where I might see realms spread and oceans roll, And mountains from their cloud-surmounting state Dwarfed like a map beneath the excursive sight, So ample was the range from that commanding height.

51.

Eastward with darkness round on every side, An eye of light was in the farthest sky. "Lo, the beginning!" said my heavenly Guide: "The steady ray which there thou canst descry Comes from lost Eden, from the primal land

Of man' waved over by the fiery brand.'

52.

Look now toward the end! no mists obscure

Nor clouds will there impede the strengthened

sight;

Unblenched thine eye the vision may endure."

I looked; surrounded with effulgent light, More glorious than all glorious hues of even, The Angel Death stood there in the open Gate of Heaven.

IV.

THE HOPES OF MAN.

1.

Now," said my heavenly Teacher, "all is clear! Bear the Beginning and the End in mind, The course of human things will then appear

Beneath its proper laws; and thou wilt find, Through all their seeming labyrinth, the plan Which vindicates the ways of God to man.'

2.

"Free choice doth Man possess of good or ill; All were but mockery else. From Wisdom's

way,

Too oft, perverted by the tainted will,

Is his rebellious nature drawn astray;
Therefore an inward monitor is given,
A voice that answers to the law of Heaven.

3.

"Frail as he is, and as an infant weak,

The knowledge of his weakness is his strength: For succor is vouchsafed to those who seek

In humble faith sincere; and, when at length Death sets the disembodied spirit free, According to their deeds their lot shall be.

4.

“Thus, should the chance of private fortune raise A transitory doubt, Death answers all. And in the scale of nations, if the ways

Of Providence mysterious we may call,

Yet, rightly viewed, all history doth impart Comfort and hope and strength to the believing heart.

5.

For through the lapse of ages may the course Of moral good progressive still be seen, Though mournful dynasties of Fraud and Force, Dark Vice and purblind Ignorance, intervene :

Empires and Nations rise, decay, and fall;
But still the Good survives and perseveres through

all.

6.

"Yea, even in those most lamentable times,
When, everywhere to wars and woes a prey,
Earth seemed but one wide theatre of crimes,
Good unperceived had worked its silent way,
And all those dread convulsions did but clear
The obstructed path to give it free career.

7.

"But deem not thou some overruling Fate,
Directing all things with benign decree,
Through all the turmoil of this mortal state,

Appoints that what is best shall therefore be:
Even as from man his future doom proceeds,
So nations rise or fall, according to their deeds.

8.

"Light at the first was given to human-kind,
And Law was written in the human heart:
If they forsake the Light, perverse of mind,
And wilfully prefer the evil part,

Then to their own devices are they left,

By their own choice of Heaven's support bereft.

9.

"The individual culprit may sometimes

Unpunished to his after-reckoning go: