您可以在百度里搜索“The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4 艾草文学(www.321553.xyz)”查找最新章节！

　　LIVING WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD

　　(? 1798)

　　Mystery of God! thou brave and beauteous world,

　　Made fair with light and shade and stars and flowers,

　　Made fearful and august with woods and rocks,

　　Jagg'd precipice, black mountain, sea in storms,

　　Sun, over all, that no co-rival owns,

　　But thro' Heaven's pavement rides as in despite

　　Or mockery of the littleness of man!

　　I see a mighty arm, by man unseen,

　　Resistless, not to be controul'd, that guides,

　　In solitude of unshared energies,

　　All these thy ceaseless miracles, O world!

　　Arm of the world, I view thee, and I muse

　　On Man, who, trusting in his mortal strength,

　　Leans on a shadowy staff, a staff of dreams.

　　We consecrate our total hopes and fears

　　To idols, flesh and blood, our love, (heaven's due)

　　Our praise and admiration; praise bestowed

　　By man on man, and acts of worship done

　　To a kindred nature, certes do reflect

　　Some portion of the glory and rays oblique

　　Upon the politic worshipper,—so man

　　Extracts a pride from his humility.

　　Some braver spirits of the modern stamp

　　Affect a Godhead nearer: these talk loud

　　Of mind, and independent intellect,

　　Of energies omnipotent in man,

　　And man of his own fate artificer;

　　Yea of his own life Lord, and of the days

　　Of his abode on earth, when time shall be,

　　That life immortal shall become an art,

　　Or Death, by chymic practices deceived,

　　Forego the scent, which for six thousand years

　　Like a good hound he has followed, or at length

　　More manners learning, and a decent sense

　　And reverence of a philosophic world,

　　Relent, and leave to prey on carcasses.

　　But these are fancies of a few: the rest,

　　Atheists, or Deists only in the name,

　　By word or deed deny a God. They eat

　　Their daily bread, and draw the breath of heaven

　　Without or thought or thanks; heaven's roof to them

　　Is but a painted ceiling hung with lamps,

　　No more, that lights them to their purposes.

　　They wander "loose about," they nothing see,

　　Themselves except, and creatures like themselves,

　　Short-liv'd, short-sighted, impotent to save.

　　So on their dissolute spirits, soon or late,

　　Destruction cometh "like an armed man,"

　　Or like a dream of murder in the night,

　　Withering their mortal faculties, and breaking

　　The bones of all their pride. The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4