He that alone would wise and mighty be,
Commands that others love as well as He. 
Love as He loved!—­How can we soar so high?—­
He can add wings, when He commands to fly. 
Nor should we be with this command dismay’d;
He that examples gives, will give His aid;
For He took flesh, that where His precepts fail,
His practice as a pattern may prevail. 
His love, at once, and dread, instruct our thought;
As man He suffer’d, and as God He taught. 150
Will for the deed He takes; we may with ease
Obedient be, for if we love we please. 
Weak though we are, to love is no hard task,
And love for love is all that Heaven does ask. 
Love! that would all men just and temp’rate make, 155
Kind to themselves, and others, for His sake.

’Tis with our minds as with a fertile ground,
Wanting this love they must with weeds abound,
(Unruly passions), whose effects are worse
Than thorns and thistles springing from the curse. 160

CANTO IV.

To glory man, or misery, is born,
Of his proud foe the envy, or the scorn;
Wretched he is, or happy, in extreme;
Base in himself, but great in Heaven’s esteem;
With love, of all created things the best;
Without it, more pernicious than the rest;
For greedy wolves unguarded sheep devour
But while their hunger lasts, and then give o’er;
Man’s boundless avarice his wants exceeds,
And on his neighbours round about him feeds. 170

His pride and vain ambition are so vast,
That, deluge-like, they lay whole nations waste. 
Debauches and excess (though with less noise)
As great a portion of mankind destroys. 
The beasts and monsters Hercules oppress’d,
Might in that age some provinces infest;
These more destructive monsters are the bane
Of every age, and in all nations reign;
But soon would vanish, if the world were bless’d
With sacred love, by which they are repress’d. 180

Impendent death, and guilt that threatens hell,
Are dreadful guests, which here with mortals dwell;
And a vex’d conscience, mingling with their joy
Thoughts of despair, does their whole life annoy;
But love appearing, all those terrors fly;
We live contented, and contented die. 
They in whose breast this sacred love has place, 187
Death, as a passage to their joy, embrace. 
Clouds and thick vapours, which obscure the day,
The sun’s victorious beams may chase away;
Those which our life corrupt and darken, love
(The nobler star!) must from the soul remove. 
Spots are observed in that which bounds the year;
This brighter sun moves in a boundless sphere;
Of heaven the joy, the glory, and the light,
Shines among angels, and admits no night.