Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 36.djvu/44

But nature's instinct could not be suppressed,
It pleaded powerful in the monarch's breast;
He could not his impetuous rage forgive,
But thought himself a wretch unfit to live.
This law which bears in China sovereign sway,
To which fierce Japanese due reverence pay,
Fired Zoroaster's genius unconfined,
And shed its sacred light on Solon's mind.
It cries from Indus to cold Zembla's shore,
"Be just, thy country love, and God adore."
The Laplander, amidst eternal snows,
His God adores, and what is justice, knows;
And sold to distant coasts the negro race
With joy in others negro features trace.
No slanderer vile, no murderer ever knows
The mind's calm sunshine and the soul's repose;
Nor ever thus his secret thoughts expressed,
He who destroys the innocent is blessed;
Blessed he by whom his mother's blood is spilt,
Great the attractions and the charms of guilt.
Believe me, mortals, man, with dauntless brow,
Would openly such sentiments avow,
If there was not a universal law
Crimes to repress, and keep the world in awe.
Did men create the sense of guilt or shame?
Their soul and faculties did mortals frame?
Whether in Peru or in China flame
The golden heaps, their nature is the same:
From the artist's hands new forms the ingots take,
But he who shapes unable is to make:
Thus God, to whom each man his being owes,
In every heart the seeds of virtue sows.