THE COMPLAINT: OR, NIGHT THOUGHTS.

Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy Sleep! He, like the world, his ready visit pays Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes; Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe, And lights on lids unsullied with a tear. From short (as usual) and disturb’d repose, I wake: how happy they, who wake no more! Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave. I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams Tumultuous; where my wreck’d desponding thought 10 From wave to wave of fancied misery At random drove, her helm of reason lost. Though now restored, ’tis only change of pain, (A bitter change!) severer for severe: The day too short for my distress; and night, 15 Even in the zenith of her dark domain, Is sunshine to the colour of my fate. Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden sceptre o’er a slumbering world. Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds; Creation sleeps. ’Tis as the general pulse 23 Of life stood still, and nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end. And let her prophecy be soon fulfill’d; Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more. Silence and darkness: solemn sisters! twins From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought To reason, and on reason build resolve 30 (That column of true majesty in man), Assist me: I will thank you in the grave; The grave, your kingdom: there this frame shall fall A victim sacred to your dreary shrine. But what are ye?— Thou, who didst put to flight Primeval Silence, when the morning stars, Exulting, shouted o’er the rising ball; O Thou, whose word from solid darkness struck That spark, the sun; strike wisdom from my soul; 40 My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure, As misers to their gold, while others rest. Through this opaque of nature, and of soul, This double night, transmit one pitying ray, To lighten, and to cheer. O lead my mind, (A mind that fain would wander from its woe), Lead it through various scenes of life and death; And from each scene the noblest truths inspire. Nor less inspire my conduct, than my song; 49 Teach my best reason, reason; my best will Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear: Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour’d On this devoted head, be pour’d in vain. The bell strikes one. We take no note of time But from its loss. To give it then a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours: Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. 60 It is the signal that demands despatch: How much is to be done? My hopes and fears Start up alarm’d, and o’er life’s narrow verge Look down—on what? a fathomless abyss; A dread eternity! how surely mine! And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour? How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man! How passing wonder He who made him such! 70 Who centred in our make such strange extremes! From different natures marvellously mix’d, Connexion exquisite of distant worlds! Distinguish’d link in being’s endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity! A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb’d! Though sullied and dishonour’d, still divine! Dim miniature of greatness absolute! An heir of glory! a frail child of dust! Helpless immortal! insect infinite! 80 A worm! a god!—I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost! At home a stranger, Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, 83 And wondering at her own: how reason reels! O what a miracle to man is man, Triumphantly distress’d! what joy, what dread! Alternately transported and alarm’d! What can preserve my life, or what destroy? An angel’s arm can’t snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can’t confine me there. 90 ’Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof: While o’er my limbs sleep’s soft dominion spread, What though my soul fantastic measures trod O’er fairy fields; or mourn’d along the gloom Of pathless woods; or down the craggy steep Hurl’d headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool; Or scaled the cliff; or danced on hollow winds, With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain? Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature Of subtler essence than the trodden clod; 100 Active, aërial, towering, unconfined, Unfetter’d with her gross companion’s fall. Even silent night proclaims my soul immortal: Even silent night proclaims eternal day. For human weal, Heaven husbands all events; Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain. Why then their loss deplore that are not lost? Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around, In infidel distress? Are angels there? Slumbers, raked up in dust, ethereal fire? 110 They live! they greatly live a life on earth Unkindled, unconceived; and from an eye Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall On me, more justly number’d with the dead. This is the desert, this the solitude: How populous, how vital, is the grave! This is creation’s melancholy vault, 117 The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom; The land of apparitions, empty shades! All, all on earth, is shadow, all beyond Is substance; the reverse is Folly’s creed: How solid all, where change shall be no more! This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, 123 The twilight of our day, the vestibule; Life’s theatre as yet is shut, and death, Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar, This gross impediment of clay remove, And make us embryos of existence free. From real life, but little more remote Is he, not yet a candidate for light, 130 The future embryo, slumbering in his sire. Embryos we must be, till we burst the shell, Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life, The life of gods, O transport! and of man. Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts; Inters celestial hopes without one sigh. Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon, Here pinions all his wishes; wing’d by heaven To fly at infinite; and reach it there, Where seraphs gather immortality, 140 On life’s fair tree, fast by the throne of God. What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow In His full beam, and ripen for the just, Where momentary ages are no more! Where time, and pain, and chance, and death, expire! And is it in the flight of threescore years To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust? A soul immortal, spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness 150 Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm’d, 151 At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly. Where falls this censure? It o’erwhelms myself; How was my heart encrusted by the world! O how self-fetter’d was my grovelling soul! How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round In silken thought, which reptile fancy spun, Till darken’d reason lay quite clouded o’er 160 With soft conceit of endless comfort here, Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies! Night-visions may befriend (as sung above): Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dream’d Of things impossible! (could sleep do more?) Of joys perpetual in perpetual change! Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave! Eternal sunshine in the storms of life! How richly were my noontide trances hung With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys! 170 Joy behind joy, in endless perspective! Till at death’s toll, whose restless iron tongue Calls daily for his millions at a meal, Starting I woke, and found myself undone. Where now my phrensy’s pompous furniture? The cobwebb’d cottage, with its ragged wall Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me! The spider’s most attenuated thread Is cord, is cable, to man’s tender tie On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze. 180 O ye blest scenes of permanent delight! Full above measure! lasting beyond bound! A perpetuity of bliss is bliss. Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end, That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy, 185 And quite unparadise the realms of light. Safe are you lodged above these rolling spheres; The baleful influence of whose giddy dance Sheds sad vicissitude on all beneath. Here teems with revolutions every hour; And rarely for the better; or the best, More mortal than the common births of fate. Each moment has its sickle, emulous 193 Of Time’s enormous scythe, whose ample sweep Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays His little weapon in the narrower sphere Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss. Bliss! sublunary bliss!—proud words, and vain! Implicit treason to divine decree! 200 A bold invasion of the rights of Heaven! I clasp’d the phantoms, and I found them air. Oh! had I weigh’d it ere my fond embrace, What darts of agony had miss’d my heart! Death! great proprietor of all! ’tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars. The sun himself by thy permission shines; And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his sphere. Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean? 210 Why thy peculiar rancour wreak’d on me? Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice;^[2] and thrice my peace was slain; And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill’d her horn. O Cynthia! why so pale? dost thou lament Thy wretched neighbour? grieve to see thy wheel Of ceaseless change outwhirl’d in human life? 217 How wanes my borrow’d bliss! from fortune’s smile, Precarious courtesy! not virtue’s sure, Self-given, solar ray of sound delight. In every varied posture, place, and hour, How widow’d every thought of every joy! Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace! Through the dark postern of time long lapsed, 224 Led softly, by the stillness of the night, Led, like a murderer, (and such it proves!) Strays (wretched rover!) o’er the pleasing past; In quest of wretchedness perversely strays; And finds all desert now; and meets the ghosts Of my departed joys; a numerous train! 230 I rue the riches of my former fate; Sweet comfort’s blasted clusters I lament; I tremble at the blessings once so dear; And every pleasure pains me to the heart. Yet why complain? or why complain for one? Hangs out the sun his lustre but for me, The single man? Are angels all beside? I mourn for millions: ’tis the common lot; In this shape, or in that, has fate entail’d The mother’s throes on all of woman born, 240 Not more the children, than sure heirs, of pain. War, famine, pest, volcano, storm, and fire, Intestine broils, oppression, with her heart Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind. God’s image disinherited of day, Here, plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made. There, beings deathless as their haughty lord, Are hammer’d to the galling oar for life; And plough the winter’s wave, and reap despair. Some, for hard masters, broken under arms, 250 In battle lopp’d away, with half their limbs, 251 Beg bitter bread through realms their valour saved, If so the tyrant, or his minion, doom. Want and incurable disease (fell pair!) On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize At once; and make a refuge of the grave. How groaning hospitals eject their dead! What numbers groan for sad admission there! What numbers, once in fortune’s lap high-fed, Solicit the cold hand of charity! 260 To shock us more, solicit it in vain! Ye silken sons of pleasure! since in pains Ye rue more modish visits, visit here, And breathe from your debauch: give, and reduce Surfeit’s dominion o’er you: but so great Your impudence, you blush at what is right. Happy, did sorrow seize on such alone! Not prudence can defend, or virtue save; Disease invades the chastest temperance; And punishment the guiltless; and alarm, 270 Through thickest shades pursues the fond of peace. Man’s caution often into danger turns, And his guard falling, crushes him to death. Not happiness itself makes good her name! Our very wishes give us not our wish. How distant oft the thing we doat on most, From that for which we doat, felicity! The smoothest course of nature has its pains; And truest friends, through error, wound our rest. Without misfortune, what calamities! 280 And what hostilities, without a foe! Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth. But endless is the list of human ills, And sighs might sooner fail, than cause to sigh. A part how small of the terraqueous globe 285 Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste, Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands: Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death. Such is earth’s melancholy map! But, far More sad! this earth is a true map of man. So bounded are its haughty lord’s delights To woe’s wide empire; where deep troubles toss, Loud sorrows howl, envenom’d passions bite, 293 Ravenous calamities our vitals seize, And threatening fate wide opens to devour. What then am I, who sorrow for myself? In age, in infancy, from others’ aid Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind. That, nature’s first, last lesson to mankind; The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels; 300 More generous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts; And conscious virtue mitigates the pang. Nor virtue, more than prudence, bids me give Swoln thought a second channel; who divide, They weaken, too, the torrent of their grief. Take then, O world! thy much-indebted tear: How sad a sight is human happiness, To those whose thought can pierce beyond an hour! O thou! whate’er thou art, whose heart exults! Would’st thou I should congratulate thy fate? 310 I know thou would’st; thy pride demands it from me. Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs, The salutary censure of a friend. Thou happy wretch! by blindness thou art blest; By dotage dandled to perpetual smiles. Know, smiler! at thy peril art thou pleased; Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain. Misfortune, like a creditor severe, But rises in demand for her delay; 319 She makes a scourge of past prosperity, To sting thee more, and double thy distress. Lorenzo, Fortune makes her court to thee, Thy fond heart dances, while the syren sings. Dear is thy welfare; think me not unkind; I would not damp, but to secure thy joys. Think not that fear is sacred to the storm: Stand on thy guard against the smiles of fate. Is Heaven tremendous in its frowns? Most sure; And in its favours formidable too: Its favours here are trials, not rewards; 330 A call to duty, not discharge from care; And should alarm us, full as much as woes; Awake us to their cause, and consequence; O’er our scann’d conduct give a jealous eye, And make us tremble, weigh’d with our desert; Awe nature’s tumult, and chastise her joys, Lest, while we clasp, we kill them; nay, invert To worse than simple misery, their charms. Revolted joys, like foes in civil war, Like bosom friendships to resentment sour’d, 340 With rage envenom’d rise against our peace. Beware what earth calls happiness; beware All joys, but joys that never can expire. Who builds on less than an immortal base, Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death. Mine died with thee, Philander!^[3] thy last sigh Dissolved the charm; the disenchanted earth Lost all her lustre. Where her glittering towers? Her golden mountains, where? all darken’d down To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears: 350 The great magician’s dead! Thou poor, pale piece Of outcast earth, in darkness! what a change 352 From yesterday! Thy darling hope so near (Long-labour’d prize!), O how ambition flush’d Thy glowing cheek! ambition truly great, Of virtuous praise. Death’s subtle seed within (Sly, treacherous miner!), working in the dark, Smiled at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon’d The worm to riot on that rose so red, Unfaded ere it fell; one moment’s prey! 360 Man’s foresight is conditionally wise; Lorenzo!^[4] wisdom into folly turns Oft, the first instant, its idea fair To labouring thought is born. How dim our eye! The present moment terminates our sight; Clouds thick as those on doomsday, drown the next; We penetrate, we prophesy in vain. Time is dealt out by particles; and each, Ere mingled with the streaming sands of life, By fate’s inviolable oath is sworn 370 Deep silence, “where eternity begins.” By nature’s law, what may be, may be now; There’s no prerogative in human hours. In human hearts what bolder thought can rise, Than man’s presumption on to-morrow’s dawn! Where is to-morrow? In another world. For numbers this is certain; the reverse Is sure to none; and yet on this perhaps, This peradventure, infamous for lies, As on a rock of adamant, we build 380 Our mountain hopes; spin out eternal schemes, As we the fatal sisters could out-spin, And, big with life’s futurities, expire. Not even Philander had bespoke his shroud; Nor had he cause; a warning was denied. 385 How many fall as sudden, not as safe! As sudden, though for years admonish’d home. Of human ills the last extreme beware, Beware, Lorenzo! a slow sudden death. How dreadful that deliberate surprise! Be wise to-day; ’tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead; 392 Thus on, till wisdom is push’d out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. If not so frequent, would not this be strange? That ’tis so frequent, this is stranger still. Of man’s miraculous mistakes, this bears 400 The palm, “That all men are about to live,” For ever on the brink of being born. All pay themselves the compliment to think They one day shall not drivel: and their pride On this reversion takes up ready praise; At least, their own; their future selves applaud; How excellent that life they ne’er will lead! Time lodged in their own hands is folly’s vails;^[5] That lodged in fate’s, to wisdom they consign; The thing they can’t but purpose, they postpone; 410 ’Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool; And scarce in human wisdom to do more. All promise is poor dilatory man, And that through every stage: when young, indeed, In full content we, sometimes, nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish, As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; 419 At fifty, chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same. And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal, but themselves: Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread; But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where pass’d the shaft, no trace is found. As from the wing no scar the sky retains; 430 The parted wave no furrow from the keel; So dies in human hearts the thought of death. Even with the tender tear which nature sheds O’er those we love, we drop it in their grave. Can I forget Philander? That were strange! O my full heart!——But should I give it vent, The longest night, though longer far, would fail, And the lark listen to my midnight song. The sprightly lark’s shrill matin wakes the morn; Grief’s sharpest thorn hard pressing on my breast, 440 I strive, with wakeful melody, to cheer The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel! like thee, And call the stars to listen: every star Is deaf to mine, enamour’d of thy lay. Yet be not vain; there are, who thine excel, And charm through distant ages: wrapt in shade, Prisoner of darkness! to the silent hours, How often I repeat their rage divine, To lull my griefs, and steal my heart from woe! I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire. 450 Dark, though not blind, like thee, Mæonides!^[6] Or, Milton! thee; ah, could I reach your strain! 452 Or his, who made Mæonides our own.^[7] Man too he sung: immortal man I sing; Oft bursts my song beyond the bounds of life; What, now, but immortality, can please? O had he press’d his theme, pursued the track, Which opens out of darkness into day! O had he, mounted on his wing of fire, Soar’d where I sink, and sung immortal man! 460 How had it bless’d mankind, and rescued me!

“When the cock crew, he wept”—smote by that eye Which looks on me, on all: that Power, who bids This midnight sentinel, with clarion shrill (Emblem of that which shall awake the dead), Rouse souls from slumber, into thoughts of heaven. Shall I too weep? Where then is fortitude? And, fortitude abandon’d, where is man? I know the terms on which he sees the light; He that is born, is listed; life is war; Eternal war with woe. Who bears it best, 10 Deserves it least.—On other themes I’ll dwell. Lorenzo! let me turn my thoughts on thee, And thine, on themes may profit; profit there, Where most thy need; themes, too, the genuine growth Of dear Philander’s dust. He thus, though dead, May still befriend—what themes? Time’s wondrous price, Death, friendship, and Philander’s final scene. So could I touch these themes, as might obtain Thine ear, nor leave thy heart quite disengaged, The good deed would delight me; half impress 20 On my dark cloud an Iris; and from grief Call glory.—Dost thou mourn Philander’s fate? I know thou say’st it: says thy life the same? He mourns the dead, who lives as they desire. Where is that thrift, that avarice of time, (O glorious avarice!) thought of death inspires, As rumour’d robberies endear our gold? O time! than gold more sacred; more a load Than lead to fools; and fools reputed wise. What moment granted man without account? 30 What years are squander’d, wisdom’s debt unpaid! Our wealth in days, all due to that discharge. Haste, haste, he lies in wait, he’s at the door, Insidious Death! should his strong hand arrest, No composition sets the prisoner free. Eternity’s inexorable chain Fast binds; and vengeance claims the full arrear. How late I shudder’d on the brink! how late Life call’d for her last refuge in despair! That time is mine, O Mead! to thee I owe; 40 Fain would I pay thee with eternity. But ill my genius answers my desire; My sickly song is mortal, past thy cure. Accept the will;—that dies not with my strain. For what calls thy disease, Lorenzo? not For Esculapian, but for moral aid. Thou think’st it folly to be wise too soon. Youth is not rich in time, it may be poor; Part with it as with money, sparing; pay No moment, but in purchase of its worth; 50 And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell. Part with it as with life, reluctant; big With holy hope of nobler time to come; Time higher aim’d, still nearer the great mark 54 Of men and angels; virtue more divine. Is this our duty, wisdom, glory, gain? (These Heaven benign in vital union binds) And sport we like the natives of the bough, When vernal suns inspire? Amusement reigns Man’s great demand: to trifle, is to live: And is it then a trifle, too, to die? Thou say’st I preach, Lorenzo! ’tis confess’d. 62 What, if for once, I preach thee quite awake? Who wants amusement in the flame of battle? Is it not treason to the soul immortal, Her foes in arms, eternity the prize? Will toys amuse, when medicines cannot cure? When spirits ebb, when life’s enchanting scenes Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight, As lands, and cities with their glittering spires, 70 To the poor shatter’d bark, by sudden storm Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there? Will toys amuse? No: thrones will then be toys, And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale. Redeem we time?—its loss we dearly buy. What pleads Lorenzo for his high-prized sports? He pleads time’s numerous blanks; he loudly pleads The straw-like trifles on life’s common stream. From whom those blanks and trifles, but from thee? No blank, no trifle, nature made, or meant. 80 Virtue, or purposed virtue, still be thine; This cancels thy complaint at once, this leaves In act no trifle, and no blank in time. This greatens, fills, immortalizes all; This, the bless’d art of turning all to gold; This, the good heart’s prerogative to raise A royal tribute from the poorest hours; Immense revenue! every moment pays. 88 If nothing more than purpose in thy power; Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed: Who does the best his circumstance allows, Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more. Our outward act, indeed, admits restraint; ’Tis not in things o’er thought to domineer; Guard well thy thought; our thoughts are heard in heaven. On all-important time, through every age, Though much, and warm, the wise have urged; the man Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour. “I’ve lost a day”—the prince who nobly cried Had been an emperor without his crown; 100 Of Rome? say, rather, lord of human race: He spoke, as if deputed by mankind. So should all speak; so reason speaks in all: From the soft whispers of that God in man, Why fly to folly, why to phrensy fly, For rescue from the blessing we possess? Time the supreme!—Time is eternity; Pregnant with all eternity can give; Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile. Who murders time, he crushes in the birth 110 A power ethereal, only not adored. Ah! how unjust to Nature, and himself, Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man! Like children babbling nonsense in their sports, We censure Nature for a span too short; That span too short, we tax as tedious too; Torture invention, all expedients tire, To lash the lingering moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves. Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer 120 (For Nature’s voice unstifled would recall), Drives headlong towards the precipice of death; 122 Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful made: Oh, what a riddle of absurdity! Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels; How heavily we drag the load of life! Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain, It makes us wander; wander earth around, To fly that tyrant, thought. As Atlas groan’d The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour. 130 We cry for mercy to the next amusement; The next amusement mortgages our fields; Slight inconvenience! prisons hardly frown, From hateful time if prisons set us free. Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief, We call him cruel; years to moments shrink, Ages to years. The telescope is turn’d. To man’s false optics (from his folly false), Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings, And seems to creep, decrepit with his age; 140 Behold him, when pass’d by; what then is seen, But his broad pinions swifter than the winds? And all mankind, in contradiction strong, Rueful, aghast! cry out on his career. Leave to thy foes these errors and these ills; To Nature just, their cause and cure explore. Not short Heaven’s bounty, boundless our expence; No niggard, Nature; men are prodigals. We waste, not use our time; we breathe, not live. Time wasted is existence, used is life. 150 And bare existence, man, to live ordain’d, Wrings, and oppresses with enormous weight. And why? since time was given for use, not waste, Enjoin’d to fly; with tempest, tide, and stars, To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man; Time’s use was doom’d a pleasure: waste, a pain; 156 That man might feel his error, if unseen: And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure; Not, blundering, split on idleness for ease. Life’s cares are comforts; such by Heaven design’d; He that has none, must make them, or be wretched. Cares are employments; and without employ The soul is on a rack; the rack of rest, 163 To souls most adverse; action all their joy. Here then, the riddle, mark’d above, unfolds; Then time turns torment, when man turns a fool. We rave, we wrestle, with great Nature’s plan; We thwart the Deity; and ’tis decreed, Who thwart his will shall contradict their own. Hence our unnatural quarrels with ourselves; 170 Our thoughts at enmity; our bosom-broils; We push Time from us, and we wish him back; Lavish of lustrums, and yet fond of life; Life we think long, and short; death seek, and shun; Body and soul, like peevish man and wife, United jar, and yet are loth to part. Oh the dark days of vanity! while here, How tasteless! and how terrible, when gone! Gone! they ne’er go; when past, they haunt us still; The spirit walks of every day deceased; 180 And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns. Nor death, nor life delight us. If time past, And time possess’d, both pain us, what can please? That which the Deity to please ordain’d, Time used. The man who consecrates his hours By vigorous effort, and an honest aim, At once he draws the sting of life and death; He walks with Nature; and her paths are peace. Our error’s cause and cure are seen: see next Time’s nature, origin, importance, speed; 190 And thy great gain from urging his career.— All-sensual man, because untouch’d, unseen, He looks on time as nothing. Nothing else Is truly man’s; ’tis fortune’s.—Time’s a god. Hast thou ne’er heard of Time’s omnipotence? For, or against, what wonders he can do, And will? To stand blank neuter he disdains. Not on those terms was Time (Heaven’s stranger!) sent On his important embassy to man. Lorenzo! no: on the long-destined hour, 200 From everlasting ages growing ripe, That memorable hour of wondrous birth, When the Dread Sire, on emanation bent, And big with Nature, rising in his might, Call’d forth creation (for then Time was born), By Godhead streaming through a thousand worlds; Not on those terms, from the great days of heaven, From old Eternity’s mysterious orb, Was Time cut off, and cast beneath the skies; The skies, which watch him in his new abode, 210 Measuring his motions by revolving spheres; That horologe machinery divine. Hours, days, and months, and years, his children play, Like numerous wings around him, as he flies: Or, rather, as unequal plumes, they shape His ample pinions, swift as darted flame, To gain his goal, to reach his ancient rest, And join anew Eternity his sire; In his immutability to nest, When worlds, that count his circles now, unhinged 220 (Fate the loud signal sounding), headlong rush To timeless night and chaos, whence they rose. Why spur the speedy? why with levities New wing thy short, short day’s too rapid flight? 224 Know’st thou, or what thou dost, or what is done? Man flies from time, and time from man; too soon In sad divorce this double flight must end: And then where are we? where, Lorenzo! then Thy sports? thy pomps?—I grant thee, in a state Not unambitious; in the ruffled shroud, Thy Parian tomb’s triumphant arch beneath. Has Death his fopperies? Then well may life 232 Put on her plume, and in her rainbow shine. Ye well-array’d! ye lilies of our land! Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin (As sister lilies might), if not so wise As Solomon, more sumptuous to the sight! Ye delicate! who nothing can support, Yourselves most insupportable! for whom The winter rose must blow, the sun put on 240 A brighter beam in Leo; silky-soft Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid; And other worlds send odours, sauce, and song, And robes, and notions, framed in foreign looms! O ye Lorenzos of our age! who deem One moment unamused, a misery Not made for feeble man! who call aloud For every bauble drivell’d o’er by sense; For rattles, and conceits of every cast, For change of follies, and relays of joy, 250 To drag your patient through the tedious length Of a short winter’s day—say, sages! say, Wit’s oracles! say, dreamers of gay dreams! How will you weather an eternal night, Where such expedients fail? O treacherous Conscience! while she seems to sleep On rose and myrtle, lull’d with syren song; While she seems, nodding o’er her charge, to drop 258 On headlong appetite the slacken’d rein, And give us up to licence, unrecall’d, Unmark’d;—see, from behind her secret stand, The sly informer minutes every fault, And her dread diary with horror fills. Not the gross act alone employs her pen; She reconnoitres fancy’s airy band, A watchful foe! the formidable spy, Listening, o’erhears the whispers of our camp: Our dawning purposes of heart explores, And steals our embryos of iniquity. As all-rapacious usurers conceal 270 Their doomsday-book from all-consuming heirs; Thus, with indulgence most severe, she treats Us spendthrifts of inestimable time; Unnoted, notes each moment misapplied; In leaves more durable than leaves of brass, Writes our whole history; which Death shall read In every pale delinquent’s private ear; And Judgment publish; publish to more worlds Than this; and endless age in groans resound. Lorenzo, such that sleeper in thy breast! 280 Such is her slumber; and her vengeance such For slighted counsel; such thy future peace! And think’st thou still thou canst be wise too soon? But why on Time so lavish is my song? On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school, To teach her sons herself. Each night we die, Each morn are born anew: each day, a life! And shall we kill each day? If trifling kills; Sure vice must butcher. Oh, what heaps of slain Cry out for vengeance on us! Time destroy’d 290 Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt. Time flies, Death urges, knells call, Heaven invites, 292 Hell threatens: all exerts; in effort, all; More than creation labours!—labours more? And is there in creation what, amidst This tumult universal, wing’d despatch, And ardent energy, supinely yawns?— Man sleeps; and man alone; and man, whose fate, Fate irreversible, entire, extreme, Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o’er the gulf 300 A moment trembles; drops! and man, for whom All else is in alarm! man, the sole cause Of this surrounding storm! and yet he sleeps, As the storm rock’d to rest.—Throw years away? Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments seize; Heaven’s on their wing: a moment we may wish, When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid Day stand still, Bid him drive back his car, and re-import The period past, re-give the given hour. Lorenzo, more than miracles we want; 310 Lorenzo—O for yesterdays to come! Such is the language of the man awake; His ardour such, for what oppresses thee. And is his ardour vain, Lorenzo? No; That more than miracle the gods indulge; To-day is yesterday return’d; return’d Full power’d to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn, And reinstate us on the rock of peace. Let it not share its predecessor’s fate; Nor, like its elder sisters, die a fool. 320 Shall it evaporate in fume? fly off Fuliginous, and stain us deeper still? Shall we be poorer for the plenty pour’d? More wretched for the clemencies of Heaven? Where shall I find him? Angels! tell me where. You know him: he is near you: point him out: 326 Shall I see glories beaming from his brow? Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers? Your golden wings, now hovering o’er him, shed Protection; now, are waving in applause To that bless’d son of foresight! lord of fate! That awful independent on to-morrow! Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past; 333 Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile; Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly; That common but opprobrious lot! past hours, If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight, If folly bounds our prospect by the grave, All feeling of futurity benumb’d; All god-like passion for eternals quench’d; 340 All relish of realities expired; Renounced all correspondence with the skies; Our freedom chain’d; quite wingless our desire; In sense dark-prison’d all that ought to soar; Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; Dismounted every great and glorious aim; Embruted every faculty divine; Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world. The world, that gulf of souls, immortal souls, Souls elevate, angelic, wing’d with fire 350 To reach the distant skies, and triumph there On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters changed, Though we from earth; ethereal, they that fell. Such veneration due, O man, to man. Who venerate themselves, the world despise. For what, gay friend! is this escutcheon’d world, Which hangs out death in one eternal night? A night, that glooms us in the noontide ray, And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud. Life’s little stage is a small eminence, 360 Inch-high the grave above; that home of man, Where dwells the multitude: we gaze around; We read their monuments; we sigh; and while We sigh, we sink; and are what we deplored; Lamenting, or lamented, all our lot! Is Death at distance? No: he has been on thee; And given sure earnest of his final blow. These hours that lately smiled, where are they now? Pallid to thought, and ghastly! drown’d, all drown’d In that great deep, which nothing disembogues! 370 And, dying, they bequeathed thee small renown. The rest are on the wing: how fleet their flight! Already has the fatal train took fire; A moment, and the world’s blown up to thee; The sun is darkness, and the stars are dust. ’Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours; And ask them, what report they bore to heaven; And how they might have borne more welcome news. Their answers form what men experience call; If Wisdom’s friend, her best; if not, worst foe. 380 “Oh, reconcile them!” kind Experience cries; “There’s nothing here, but what as nothing weighs; The more our joy, the more we know it vain; And by success are tutor’d to despair.” Nor is it only thus, but must be so. Who knows not this, though grey, is still a child. Loose then from earth the grasp of fond desire, Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore. Art thou so moor’d thou canst not disengage, Nor give thy thoughts a ply to future scenes? 390 Since, by life’s passing breath, blown up from earth, Light as the summer’s dust, we take in air A moment’s giddy flight, and fall again; Join the dull mass, increase the trodden soil, 394 And sleep, till earth herself shall be no more; Since then (as emmets, their small world o’erthrown) We, sore-amazed, from out earth’s ruins crawl, And rise to fate extreme of foul or fair, As man’s own choice (controller of the skies!) As man’s despotic will, perhaps one hour (O how omnipotent is time!) decrees; Should not each warning give a strong alarm? Warning, far less than that of bosom torn 403 From bosom, bleeding o’er the sacred dead! Should not each dial strike us as we pass, Portentous, as the written wall, which struck, O’er midnight bowls, the proud Assyrian pale, Erewhile high-flush’d, with insolence, and wine? Like that, the dial speaks; and points to thee, Lorenzo! loth to break thy banquet up: 410 “O man, thy kingdom is departing from thee; And, while it lasts, is emptier than my shade.” Its silent language such: nor need’st thou call Thy Magi, to decipher what it means. Know, like the Median, fate is in thy walls: Dost ask, How? Whence? Belshazzar-like, amazed? Man’s make encloses the sure seeds of death; Life feeds the murderer: ingrate! he thrives On her own meal, and then his nurse devours. But, here, Lorenzo, the delusion lies; 420 That solar shadow, as it measures life, It life resembles too: life speeds away From point to point, though seeming to stand still. The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth: Too subtle is the movement to be seen; Yet soon man’s hour is up, and we are gone. Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time: As these are useless when the sun is set: 423 So those, but when more glorious reason shines. Reason should judge in all; in reason’s eye, That sedentary shadow travels hard. But such our gravitation to the wrong, So prone our hearts to whisper what we wish, ’Tis later with the wise than he’s aware: A Wilmington goes slower than the sun: And all mankind mistake their time of day; Even age itself. Fresh hopes are hourly sown In furrow’d brows. To gentle life’s descent We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain. We take fair days in winter, for the spring; 440 And turn our blessings into bane. Since oft Man must compute that age he cannot feel, He scarce believes he’s older for his years. Thus, at life’s latest eve, we keep in store One disappointment sure, to crown the rest; The disappointment of a promised hour. On this, or similar, Philander! thou, Whose mind was moral, as the preacher’s tongue; And strong, to wield all science, worth the name; How often we talk’d down the summer’s sun, 450 And cool’d our passions by the breezy stream! How often thaw’d and shorten’d winter’s eve, By conflict kind, that struck out latent truth, Best found, so sought; to the recluse more coy! Thoughts disentangle passing o’er the lip; Clean runs the thread; if not, ’tis thrown away, Or kept to tie up nonsense for a song; Song, fashionably fruitless; such as stains The fancy, and unhallow’d passion fires; Chiming her saints to Cytherea’s^[8] fane. 460 Know’st thou, Lorenzo! what a friend contains? 461 As bees mix’d nectar draw from fragrant flowers, So men from friendship, wisdom and delight; Twins tied by Nature, if they part, they die. Hast thou no friend to set thy mind abroach? Good sense will stagnate. Thoughts shut up, want air, And spoil, like bales unopen’d to the sun. Had thought been all, sweet speech had been denied; Speech, thought’s canal! speech, thought’s criterion too! Thought in the mine, may come forth gold, or dross; When coin’d in words, we know its real worth. 471 If sterling, store it for thy future use; ’Twill buy thee benefit; perhaps, renown. Thought, too, deliver’d, is the more possess’d; Teaching, we learn; and, giving, we retain The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot. Speech ventilates our intellectual fire; Speech burnishes our mental magazine; Brightens, for ornament; and whets, for use. What numbers, sheathed in erudition, lie, 480 Plunged to the hilts in venerable tomes, And rusted in; who might have borne an edge, And play’d a sprightly beam, if born to speech; If born bless’d heirs of half their mother’s tongue! ’Tis thought’s exchange, which, like th’ alternate push Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum, And defecates the student’s standing pool. In contemplation is his proud resource? ’Tis poor, as proud, by converse unsustain’d. Rude thought runs wild in contemplation’s field; 490 Converse, the menage, breaks it to the bit Of due restraint; and emulation’s spur Gives graceful energy, by rivals awed. ’Tis converse qualifies for solitude; As exercise, for salutary rest. 495 By that untutor’d, contemplation raves; And Nature’s fool, by wisdom is undone. Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines, And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive, What is she, but the means of happiness? That unobtain’d, than folly more a fool; A melancholy fool, without her bells. Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives 503 The precious end, which makes our wisdom wise. Nature, in zeal for human amity, Denies, or damps, an undivided joy. Joy is an import; joy is an exchange; Joy flies monopolists: it calls for two; Rich fruit! heaven-planted! never pluck’d by one. Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give 510 To social man true relish of himself. Full on ourselves, descending in a line, Pleasure’s bright beam is feeble in delight: Delight intense, is taken by rebound; Reverberated pleasures fire the breast. Celestial happiness, whene’er she stoops To visit earth, one shrine the goddess finds, And one alone, to make her sweet amends For absent heaven—the bosom of a friend; Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft, 520 Each other’s pillow to repose divine. Beware the counterfeit: in passion’s flame Hearts melt, but melt like ice, soon harder froze. True love strikes root in reason; passion’s foe: Virtue alone entenders us for life: I wrong her much—entenders us for ever: Of friendship’s fairest fruits, the fruit most fair Is virtue kindling at a rival fire, And, emulously, rapid in her race. 529 O the soft enmity! endearing strife! This carries friendship to her noontide point, And gives the rivet of eternity. From friendship, which outlives my former themes, Glorious survivor of old time and death; From friendship, thus, that flower of heavenly seed, The wise extract earth’s most Hyblean bliss, Superior wisdom, crown’d with smiling joy. But for whom blossoms this Elysian flower? Abroad they find, who cherish it at home. Lorenzo! pardon what my love extorts, 540 An honest love, and not afraid to frown. Though choice of follies fasten on the great, None clings more obstinate, than fancy, fond That sacred friendship is their easy prey; Caught by the wafture of a golden lure, Or fascination of a high-born smile. Their smiles, the great, and the coquette, throw out For others’ hearts, tenacious of their own; And we no less of ours, when such the bait. Ye fortune’s cofferers! ye powers of wealth! 550 Can gold gain friendship? Impudence of hope! As well mere man an angel might beget. Love, and love only, is the loan for love. Lorenzo! pride repress; nor hope to find A friend, but what has found a friend in thee. All like the purchase; few the price will pay; And this makes friends such miracles below. What if (since daring on so nice a theme) I show thee friendship delicate, as dear, Of tender violations apt to die? 560 Reserve will wound it; and distrust, destroy. Deliberate on all things with thy friend. But since friends grow not thick on every bough, 563 Nor every friend unrotten at the core; First, on thy friend, deliberate with thyself; Pause, ponder, sift; not eager in the choice, Nor jealous of the chosen; fixing, fix; Judge before friendship, then confide till death. Well, for thy friend; but nobler far for thee; How gallant danger for earth’s highest prize! 570 A friend is worth all hazards we can run. “Poor is the friendless master of a world: A world in purchase for a friend is gain.” So sung he (angels hear that angel sing! Angels from friendship gather half their joy), So sung Philander, as his friend went round In the rich ichor, in the generous blood Of Bacchus, purple god of joyous wit, A brow solute, and ever-laughing eye. He drank long health, and virtue, to his friend; 580 His friend, who warm’d him more, who more inspired. Friendship’s the wine of life; but friendship new (Not such was his) is neither strong, nor pure. O for the bright complexion, cordial warmth, And elevating spirit, of a friend, For twenty summers ripening by my side; All feculence of falsehood long thrown down; All social virtues rising in his soul; As crystal clear; and smiling, as they rise! Here nectar flows; it sparkles in our sight; 590 Rich to the taste, and genuine from the heart. High-flavour’d bliss for gods! on earth how rare! On earth how lost!—Philander is no more. Think’st thou the theme intoxicates my song? Am I too warm?—Too warm I cannot be. I loved him much; but now I love him more. Like birds, whose beauties languish, half-conceal’d, 597 Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes Expanded shine with azure, green, and gold; How blessings brighten as they take their flight! His flight Philander took; his upward flight, If ever soul ascended. Had he dropp’d (That eagle genius!), oh! had he let fall One feather as he flew; I, then, had wrote, 604 What friends might flatter; prudent foes forbear; Rivals scarce damn; and Zoilus reprieve. Yet what I can, I must: it were profane To quench a glory lighted at the skies, And cast in shadows his illustrious close. Strange! the theme most affecting, most sublime, 610 Momentous most to man, should sleep unsung! And yet it sleeps, by genius unawaked, Paynim or Christian; to the blush of wit. Man’s highest triumph! man’s profoundest fall! The death-bed of the just! is yet undrawn By mortal hand; it merits a divine: Angels should paint it, angels ever there; There, on a post of honour, and of joy. Dare I presume, then? But Philander bids; And glory tempts, and inclination calls— 620 Yet am I struck; as struck the soul, beneath Aërial groves’ impenetrable gloom; Or, in some mighty ruin’s solemn shade; Or, gazing by pale lamps on high-born dust, In vaults; thin courts of poor unflatter’d kings; Or, at the midnight altar’s hallow’d flame. Is it religion to proceed? I pause— And enter, awed, the temple of my theme. Is it his death-bed? No: it is his shrine: Behold him, there, just rising to a god. 630 The chamber where the good man meets his fate, 631 Is privileged beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven. Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe, Receive the blessing, and adore the chance, That threw in this Bethesda your disease; If unrestored by this, despair your cure. For here, resistless demonstration dwells; A death-bed’s a detector of the heart. Here tired Dissimulation drops her mask, 640 Through life’s grimace, that mistress of the scene! Here real and apparent are the same. You see the man; you see his hold on heaven; If sound his virtue; as Philander’s, sound. Heaven waits not the last moment; owns her friends On this side death; and points them out to men, A lecture, silent, but of sovereign power! To vice, confusion; and to virtue, peace. Whatever farce the boastful hero plays, Virtue alone has majesty in death; 650 And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns. Philander! he severely frown’d on thee. “No warning given! Unceremonious fate! A sudden rush from life’s meridian joy! A wrench from all we love! from all we are! A restless bed of pain! a plunge opaque Beyond conjecture! feeble Nature’s dread! Strong reason’s shudder at the dark unknown! A sun extinguish’d! a just opening grave! And, oh! the last, last, what? (can words express? 660 Thought reach it?)—the last—silence of a friend!” Where are those horrors, that amazement, where, This hideous group of ills, which singly shock, Demand from man?—I thought him man till now. Through nature’s wreck, through vanquish’d agonies (Like the stars struggling through this midnight gloom), What gleams of joy! what more than human peace! Where, the frail mortal? the poor abject worm? No, not in death, the mortal to be found. His conduct is a legacy for all; 670 Richer than Mammon’s for his single heir. His comforters he comforts; great in ruin, With unreluctant grandeur, gives, not yields, His soul sublime; and closes with his fate. How our hearts burn’d within us at the scene! Whence this brave bound o’er limits fix’d to man? His God sustains him in his final hour! His final hour brings glory to his God! Man’s glory Heaven vouchsafes to call her own. We gaze, we weep; mix’d tears of grief and joy! 680 Amazement strikes! devotion bursts to flame! Christians adore! and infidels believe! As some tall tower,^[9] or lofty mountain’s brow, Detains the sun, illustrious, from its height; While rising vapours, and descending shades, With damps, and darkness, drown the spacious vale; Undamp’d by doubt, undarken’d by despair, Philander, thus, augustly rears his head, At that black hour, which general horror sheds On the low level of th’ inglorious throng: 690 Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and humble joy, Divinely beam on his exalted soul; Destruction gild, and crown him for the skies, With incommunicable lustre, bright.

Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.—Virg.

From dreams, where thought in fancy’s maze runs mad, To reason, that heaven-lighted lamp in man, Once more I wake; and at the destined hour, Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn, I keep my assignation with my woe. Oh! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought, Lost to the noble sallies of the soul! Who think it solitude to be alone. Communion sweet! communion large and high! Our reason, guardian angel, and our God! 10 Then nearest these, when others most remote; And all, ere long, shall be remote, but these. How dreadful, then, to meet them all alone, A stranger! unacknowledged, unapproved! Now woo them, wed them, bind them to thy breast; To win thy wish, creation has no more. Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend— But friends, how mortal! dangerous the desire. Take Phœbus to yourselves, ye basking bards! 19 Inebriate at fair fortune’s fountain-head; And reeling through the wilderness of joy; Where sense runs savage, broke from reason’s chain, And sings false peace, till smother’d by the pall. My fortune is unlike; unlike my song; Unlike the deity my song invokes. I to Day’s soft-eyed sister pay my court (Endymion’s rival!), and her aid implore; Now first implored in succour to the Muse. Thou, who didst lately borrow^[11] Cynthia’s form, And modestly forego thine own! O thou, 30 Who didst thyself at midnight hours inspire! Say, why not Cynthia patroness of song? As thou her crescent, she thy character Assumes; still more a goddess by the change. Are there demurring wits, who dare dispute This revolution in the world inspired? Ye train Pierian! to the lunar sphere, In silent hour address your ardent call For aid immortal; less her brother’s right. She, with the spheres harmonious, nightly leads 40 The mazy dance, and hears their matchless strain; A strain for gods, denied to mortal ear. Transmit it heard, thou silver Queen of Heaven! What title, or what name, endears thee most? Cynthia! Cyllene! Phœbe!—or dost hear With higher gust, fair P——d of the skies? Is that the soft enchantment calls thee down, More powerful than of old Circean charm? Come; but from heavenly banquets with thee bring The soul of song, and whisper in my ear 50 The theft divine; or in propitious dreams (For dreams are thine) transfuse it through the breast 52 Of thy first votary—but not thy last; If, like thy namesake, thou art ever kind. And kind thou wilt be; kind on such a theme; A theme so like thee, a quite lunar theme, Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair! A theme that rose all pale, and told my soul, ’Twas Night; on her fond hopes perpetual night; A night which struck a damp, a deadlier damp, 60 Than that which smote me from Philander’s tomb. Narcissa^[12] follows, ere his tomb is closed. Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes; They love a train, they tread each other’s heel; Her death invades his mournful right, and claims The grief that started from my lids for him: Seizes the faithless, alienated tear, Or shares it, ere it falls. So frequent Death, Sorrow he more than causes, he confounds; For human sighs his rival strokes contend, 70 And make distress, distraction. Oh, Philander! What was thy fate? A double fate to me; Portent, and pain! a menace, and a blow! Like the black raven hovering o’er my peace, Not less a bird of omen, than of prey. It call’d Narcissa long before her hour; It call’d her tender soul, by break of bliss, From the first blossom, from the buds of joy; Those few our noxious fate unblasted leaves In this inclement clime of human life. 80 Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet! And young as beautiful! and soft as young! And gay as soft! and innocent as gay! And happy (if aught happy here) as good! For fortune fond had built her nest on high. 85 Like birds quite exquisite of note and plume, Transfix’d by fate (who loves a lofty mark), How from the summit of the grove she fell, And left it unharmonious! all its charms Extinguish’d in the wonders of her song! Her song still vibrates in my ravish’d ear, Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain (O to forget her!) thrilling through my heart! 93 Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy! this group Of bright ideas, flowers of paradise, As yet unforfeit! in one blaze we bind, Kneel, and present it to the skies; as all We guess of heaven: and these were all her own. And she was mine; and I was—was!—most blest!— Gay title of the deepest misery! 100 As bodies grow more ponderous, robb’d of life; Good lost weighs more in grief, than gain’d, in joy. Like blossom’d trees o’erturn’d by vernal storm, Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay; And if in death still lovely, lovelier there; Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love. And will not the severe excuse a sigh? Scorn the proud man that is ashamed to weep; Our tears indulged, indeed deserve our shame. Ye that e’er lost an angel! pity me. 110 Soon as the lustre languish’d in her eye, Dawning a dimmer day on human sight; And on her cheek, the residence of spring, Pale omen sat; and scatter’d fears around On all that saw; (and who would cease to gaze, That once had seen?) with haste, parental haste, I flew, I snatch’d her from the rigid north, Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew, And bore her nearer to the sun;^[13] the sun 119 (As if the sun could envy) check’d his beam, Denied his wonted succour; nor with more Regret beheld her drooping, than the bells Of lilies; fairest lilies, not so fair! Queen lilies! and ye painted populace! Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrosial lives; In morn and evening dew your beauties bathe, And drink the sun; which gives your cheeks to glow, And out-blush (mine excepted) every fair; You gladlier grew, ambitious of her hand, Which often cropp’d your odours, incense meet 130 To thought so pure! Ye lovely fugitives! Coeval race with man! for man you smile; Why not smile at him too? You share indeed His sudden pass; but not his constant pain. So man is made, nought ministers delight, By what his glowing passions can engage; And glowing passions, bent on aught below, Must, soon or late, with anguish turn the scale; And anguish, after rapture, how severe! Rapture? Bold man! who tempts the wrath divine, 140 By plucking fruit denied to mortal taste, While here, presuming on the rights of heaven. For transport dost thou call on every hour, Lorenzo? At thy friend’s expense be wise; Lean not on earth; ’twill pierce thee to the heart; A broken reed, at best; but, oft, a spear; On its sharp point peace bleeds, and hope expires. Turn, hopeless thought! turn from her:—thought repell’d Resenting rallies, and wakes every woe. Snatch’d ere thy prime! and in thy bridal hour! 150 And when kind fortune, with thy lover, smiled! 151 And when high flavour’d thy fresh opening joys! And when blind man pronounced thy bliss complete! And on a foreign shore; where strangers wept! Strangers to thee; and, more surprising still, Strangers to kindness, wept: their eyes let fall Inhuman tears: strange tears! that trickled down From marble hearts! obdurate tenderness! A tenderness that call’d them more severe; In spite of nature’s soft persuasion, steel’d; 160 While nature melted, superstition raved; That mourn’d the dead; and this denied a grave. Their sighs incensed; sighs foreign to the will! Their will the tiger suck’d, outraged the storm. For oh! the cursed ungodliness of zeal! While sinful flesh relented, spirit nursed In blind infallibility’s embrace, The sainted spirit petrified the breast; Denied the charity of dust, to spread O’er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy. 170 What could I do? what succour? what resource? With pious sacrilege, a grave I stole; With impious piety, that grave I wrong’d; Short in my duty; coward in my grief! More like her murderer, than friend, I crept, With soft-suspended step, and muffled deep In midnight darkness, whisper’d my last sigh. I whisper’d what should echo through their realms; Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies. Presumptuous fear! How durst I dread her foes, 180 While nature’s loudest dictates I obey’d? Pardon necessity, bless’d shade! of grief And indignation rival bursts I pour’d; Half execration mingled with my prayer; Kindled at man, while I his God adored; 185 Sore grudged the savage land her sacred dust; Stamp’d the cursed soil; and with humanity (Denied Narcissa) wish’d them all a grave. Glows my resentment into guilt? What guilt Can equal violations of the dead? The dead how sacred! Sacred is the dust Of this heaven-labour’d form, erect, divine! 192 This heaven-assumed majestic robe of earth, He deign’d to wear, who hung the vast expanse With azure bright, and clothed the sun in gold. When every passion sleeps that can offend; When strikes us every motive that can melt; When man can wreak his rancour uncontroll’d, That strongest curb on insult and ill-will; Then, spleen to dust? the dust of innocence? 200 An angel’s dust?—This Lucifer transcends; When he contended for the patriarch’s bones, ’Twas not the strife of malice, but of pride; The strife of pontiff pride, not pontiff gall. Far less than this is shocking in a race Most wretched, but from streams of mutual love; And uncreated, but for love divine; And, but for love divine, this moment, lost, By fate resorb’d, and sunk in endless night. Man hard of heart to man! of horrid things 210 Most horrid! ’mid stupendous, highly strange! Yet oft his courtesies are smoother wrongs; Pride brandishes the favours He confers, And contumelious his humanity: What then his vengeance? Hear it not, ye stars! And thou, pale moon! turn paler at the sound; Man is to man the sorest, surest ill. A previous blast foretells the rising storm; O’erwhelming turrets threaten ere they fall; 219 Volcanos bellow ere they disembogue; Earth trembles ere her yawning jaws devour; And smoke betrays the wide-consuming fire: Ruin from man is most conceal’d when near, And sends the dreadful tidings in the blow. Is this the flight of fancy? Would it were! Heaven’s Sovereign saves all beings, but himself, That hideous sight, a naked human heart. Fired is the Muse? And let the Muse be fired: Who not inflamed, when what he speaks, he feels, And in the nerve most tender, in his friends? 230 Shame to mankind! Philander had his foes; He felt the truths I sing, and I in him. But he, nor I, feel more: past ills, Narcissa! Are sunk in thee, thou recent wound of heart! Which bleeds with other cares, with other pangs; Pangs numerous, as the numerous ills that swarm’d O’er thy distinguish’d fate, and, clustering there Thick as the locusts on the land of Nile, Made death more deadly, and more dark the grave. Reflect (if not forgot my touching tale) 240 How was each circumstance with aspics arm’d? An aspic, each! and all, a hydra woe: What strong Herculean virtue could suffice?— Or is it virtue to be conquer’d here? This hoary cheek a train of tears bedews; And each tear mourns its own distinct distress; And each distress, distinctly mourn’d, demands Of grief still more, as heighten’d by the whole. A grief like this proprietors excludes: Not friends alone such obsequies deplore; 250 They make mankind the mourner; carry sighs Far as the fatal fame can wing her way; And turn the gayest thought of gayest age, 253 Down their right channel, through the vale of death. The vale of death! that hush’d Cimmerian vale, Where darkness, brooding o’er unfinish’d fates With raven wing incumbent, waits the day (Dread day!) that interdicts all future change! That subterranean world, that land of ruin! Fit walk, Lorenzo, for proud human thought! There let my thought expatiate, and explore 261 Balsamic truths, and healing sentiments, Of all most wanted, and most welcome, here. For gay Lorenzo’s sake, and for thy own, My soul! “the fruits of dying friends survey; Expose the vain of life; weigh life and death; Give death his eulogy; thy fear subdue; And labour that first palm of noble minds, A manly scorn of terror from the tomb.” This harvest reap from thy Narcissa’s grave. 270 As poets feign’d from Ajax’ streaming blood Arose, with grief inscribed, a mournful flower; Let wisdom blossom from my mortal wound. And first, of dying friends; what fruit from these? It brings us more than triple aid; an aid To chase our thoughtlessness, fear, pride, and guilt. Our dying friends come o’er us like a cloud, To damp our brainless ardours; and abate That glare of life, which often blinds the wise. Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth 280 Our rugged pass to death; to break those bars Of terror, and abhorrence, nature throws Cross our obstructed way; and, thus to make Welcome, as safe, our port from every storm. Each friend by fate snatch’d from us, is a plume Pluck’d from the wing of human vanity, Which makes us stoop from our aërial heights, 287 And, damp’d with omen of our own decease, On drooping pinions of ambition lower’d, Just skim earth’s surface, ere we break it up, O’er putrid earth to scratch a little dust, And save the world a nuisance. Smitten friends Are angels sent on errands full of love; For us they languish, and for us they die: And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain? Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hovering shades, Which wait the revolution in our hearts? Shall we disdain their silent soft address; Their posthumous advice, and pious prayer? Senseless, as herds that graze their hallow’d graves, 300 Tread under foot their agonies and groans; Frustrate their anguish, and destroy their deaths? Lorenzo! no; the thought of death indulge; Give it its wholesome empire! let it reign, That kind chastiser of thy soul in joy! Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far, And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast: Auspicious era! golden days, begin! The thought of death shall, like a god, inspire. And why not think on death? Is life the theme 310 Of every thought? and wish of every hour? And song of every joy? Surprising truth! The beaten spaniel’s fondness not so strange. To wave the numerous ills that seize on life As their own property, their lawful prey; Ere man has measured half his weary stage, His luxuries have left him no reserve, No maiden relishes, unbroach’d delights; On cold served repetitions he subsists, And in the tasteless present chews the past; 320 Disgusted chews, and scarce can swallow down. 321 Like lavish ancestors, his earlier years Have disinherited his future hours, Which starve on orts, and glean their former field. Live ever here, Lorenzo?—shocking thought! So shocking, they who wish, disown it too; Disown from shame what they from folly crave. Live ever in the womb, nor see the light? For what live ever here?—With labouring step To tread our former footsteps? pace the round 330 Eternal? to climb life’s worn, heavy wheel, Which draws up nothing new? to beat, and beat The beaten track? to bid each wretched day The former mock? to surfeit on the same, And yawn our joys? or thank a misery For change, though sad? to see what we have seen? Hear, till unheard, the same old slabber’d tale? To taste the tasted, and at each return Less tasteful? o’er our palates to decant Another vintage? strain a flatter year, 340 Through loaded vessels, and a laxer tone? Crazy machines to grind earth’s wasted fruits! Ill-ground, and worse concocted! load, not life! The rational foul kennels of excess! Still-streaming thoroughfares of dull debauch! Trembling each gulp, lest death should snatch the bowl. Such of our fine ones is the wish refined! So would they have it: elegant desire! Why not invite the bellowing stalls, and wilds? But such examples might their riot awe. 350 Through want of virtue, that is, want of thought (Though on bright thought they father all their flights), To what are they reduced? To love, and hate, The same vain world; to censure, and espouse, This painted shrew of life, who calls them fool 355 Each moment of each day; to flatter bad Through dread of worse; to cling to this rude rock, Barren, to them, of good, and sharp with ills, And hourly blacken’d with impending storms, And infamous for wrecks of human hope— Scared at the gloomy gulf, that yawns beneath, Such are their triumphs! such their pangs of joy! 362 ’Tis time, high time, to shift this dismal scene. This hugg’d, this hideous state, what art can cure? One only; but that one, what all may reach; Virtue—she, wonder-working goddess! charms That rock to bloom; and tames the painted shrew; And what will more surprise, Lorenzo! gives To life’s sick, nauseous iteration, change; And straightens nature’s circle to a line. 370 Believest thou this, Lorenzo? lend an ear, A patient ear, thou’lt blush to disbelieve. A languid, leaden iteration reigns, And ever must, o’er those, whose joys are joys Of sight, smell, taste: the cuckoo-seasons sing The same dull note to such as nothing prize, But what those seasons, from the teeming earth, To doating sense indulge. But nobler minds, Which relish fruits unripen’d by the sun, Make their days various; various as the dyes 380 On the dove’s neck, which wanton in his rays. On minds of dove-like innocence possess’d, On lighten’d minds, that bask in virtue’s beams, Nothing hangs tedious, nothing old revolves In that for which they long, for which they live. Their glorious efforts, wing’d with heavenly hope, Each rising morning sees still higher rise; Each bounteous dawn its novelty presents To worth maturing, new strength, lustre, fame; 389 While nature’s circle, like a chariot-wheel Rolling beneath their elevated aims, Makes their fair prospect fairer every hour; Advancing virtue, in a line to bliss; Virtue, which Christian motives best inspire! And bliss, which Christian schemes alone ensure! And shall we then, for virtue’s sake, commence Apostates, and turn infidels for joy? A truth it is, few doubt, but fewer trust, “He sins against this life, who slights the next.” What is this life? How few their favourite know! 400 Fond in the dark, and blind in our embrace, By passionately loving life, we make Loved life unlovely; hugging her to death. We give to time eternity’s regard; And, dreaming, take our passage for our port. Life has no value as an end, but means; An end deplorable! a means divine! When ’tis our all, ’tis nothing; worse than nought; A nest of pains: when held as nothing, much: Like some fair humorists, life is most enjoy’d, 410 When courted least; most worth, when disesteem’d; Then ’tis the seat of comfort, rich in peace; In prospect richer far; important! awful! Not to be mention’d, but with shouts of praise! Not to be thought on, but with tides of joy! The mighty basis of eternal bliss! Where now the barren rock? the painted shrew? Where now, Lorenzo! life’s eternal round? Have I not made my triple promise good? Vain is the world; but only to the vain. 420 To what compare we then this varying scene, Whose worth ambiguous rises, and declines? Waxes, and wanes? (In all propitious, night 423 Assists me here) compare it to the moon; Dark in herself, and indigent; but rich In borrow’d lustre from a higher sphere. When gross guilt interposes, labouring earth, O’ershadow’d, mourns a deep eclipse of joy; Her joys, at brightest, pallid, to that font Of full effulgent glory, whence they flow. 430 Nor is that glory distant: Oh, Lorenzo! A good man, and an angel! these between How thin the barrier! What divides their fate? Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year: Or, if an age, it is a moment still; A moment, or eternity’s forgot. Then be, what once they were, who now are gods; Be what Philander was, and claim the skies. Starts timid nature at the gloomy pass? The soft transition call it; and be cheer’d: 440 Such it is often, and why not to thee? To hope the best, is pious, brave, and wise; And may itself procure, what it presumes. Life is much flatter’d, death is much traduced; Compare the rivals, and the kinder crown. “Strange competition!”—True, Lorenzo! strange! So little life can cast into the scale. Life makes the soul dependent on the dust; Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres. Through chinks, styled organs, dim life peeps at light; Death bursts th’ involving cloud, and all is day; 451 All eye, all ear, the disembodied power. Death has feign’d evils, nature shall not feel; Life, ills substantial, wisdom cannot shun. Is not the mighty mind, that son of heaven! By tyrant life dethroned, imprison’d, pain’d? By death enlarged, ennobled, deified? 457 Death but entombs the body; life the soul. “Is Death then guiltless? How he marks his way With dreadful waste of what deserves to shine! Art, genius, fortune, elevated power! With various lustres these light up the world, Which Death puts out, and darkens human race.” 463 I grant, Lorenzo! this indictment just: The sage, peer, potentate, king, conqueror! Death humbles these; more barbarous life, the man. Life is the triumph of our mouldering clay; Death, of the spirit infinite! divine! Death has no dread, but what frail life imparts; Nor life true joy, but what kind death improves. 470 No bliss has life to boast, till death can give Far greater; life’s a debtor to the grave, Dark lattice! letting in eternal day. Lorenzo! blush at fondness for a life, Which sends celestial souls on errands vile, To cater for the sense; and serve at boards, Where every ranger of the wilds, perhaps Each reptile, justly claims our upper hand. Luxurious feast! a soul, a soul immortal, In all the dainties of a brute bemired! 480 Lorenzo! blush at terror for a death, Which gives thee to repose in festive bowers, Where nectars sparkle, angels minister, And more than angels share, and raise, and crown, And eternize, the birth, bloom, bursts of bliss. What need I more? O Death, the palm is thine. Then welcome, Death! thy dreaded harbingers, Age and disease; disease, though long my guest; That plucks my nerves, those tender strings of life; Which, pluck’d a little more, will toll the bell, 490 That calls my few friends to my funeral; 491 Where feeble nature drops, perhaps, a tear, While reason and religion, better taught, Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb With wreath triumphant. Death is victory; It binds in chains the raging ills of life: Lust and ambition, wrath and avarice, Dragg’d at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power. That ills corrosive, cares importunate, Are not immortal too, O Death! is thine. 500 Our day of dissolution!—name it right; ’Tis our great pay-day; ’tis our harvest, rich And ripe: what though the sickle, sometimes keen, Just scars us as we reap the golden grain? More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound. Birth’s feeble cry, and death’s deep dismal groan, Are slender tributes low-tax’d nature pays For mighty gain: the gain of each, a life! But O! the last the former so transcends, Life dies, compared; life lives beyond the grave. 510 And feel I, Death! no joy from thought of thee? Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires With every nobler thought, and fairer deed! Death, the deliverer, who rescues man! Death, the rewarder, who the rescued crowns! Death, that absolves my birth; a curse without it! Rich death, that realises all my cares, Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera! Death, of all pain the period, not of joy; Joy’s source, and subject, still subsist unhurt; 520 One, in my soul; and one, in her great Sire; Though the four winds were warring for my dust. Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night, Though prison’d there, my dust too I reclaim (To dust when drop proud nature’s proudest spheres), And live entire. Death is the crown of life: 526 Were death denied, poor man would live in vain; Were death denied, to live would not be life; Were death denied, even fools would wish to die. Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rise; we reign! Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies; Where blooming Eden withers in our sight: Death gives us more than was in Eden lost. This king of terrors is the prince of peace. When shall I die to vanity, pain, death? When shall I die?—When shall I live for ever? 536

A much-indebted muse, O Yorke! intrudes. Amid the smiles of fortune, and of youth, Thine ear is patient of a serious song. How deep implanted in the breast of man The dread of death! I sing its sovereign cure. Why start at Death? Where is he? Death arrived, Is past; not come, or gone, he’s never here. Ere hope, sensation fails; black-boding man Receives, not suffers, Death’s tremendous blow. The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave; 10 The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm; These are the bugbears of a winter’s eve, The terrors of the living, not the dead. Imagination’s fool, and error’s wretch, Man makes a death, which nature never made; Then on the point of his own fancy falls; And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one. But were death frightful, what has age to fear? If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe, And shelter in his hospitable gloom. 20 I scarce can meet a monument, but holds My younger; every date cries—“Come away.” And what recalls me? Look the world around, And tell me what: the wisest cannot tell. Should any born of woman give his thought Full range, on just dislike’s unbounded field; Of things, the vanity; of men, the flaws; Flaws in the best; the many, flaw all o’er; As leopards, spotted, or, as Ethiops, dark; Vivacious ill; good dying immature; 30 (How immature, Narcissa’s marble tells!) And at his death bequeathing endless pain; His heart, though bold, would sicken at the sight, And spend itself in sighs, for future scenes. But grant to life (and just it is to grant To lucky life) some perquisites of joy; A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale, Long-rifled life of sweet can yield no more, But from our comment on the comedy, Pleasing reflections on parts well sustain’d, 40 Or purposed emendations where we fail’d, Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge, When, on their exit, souls are bid unrobe, Toss fortune back her tinsel, and her plume, And drop this mask of flesh behind the scene. With me, that time is come; my world is dead; A new world rises, and new manners reign: Foreign comedians, a spruce band! arrive, To push me from the scene, or hiss me there. What a pert race starts up! the strangers gaze, 50 And I at them; my neighbour is unknown; Nor that the worst: ah me! the dire effect Of loitering here, of Death defrauded long; Of old so gracious (and let that suffice), 54 My very master knows me not.— Shall I dare say, peculiar is the fate? I’ve been so long remember’d, I’m forgot. An object ever pressing dims the sight, And hides behind its ardour to be seen. When in his courtiers’ ears I pour my plaint, 60 They drink it as the nectar of the great; And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow. Refusal! canst thou wear a smoother form? Indulge me, nor conceive I drop my theme: Who cheapens life, abates the fear of death: Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy, Court favour, yet untaken, I besiege; Ambition’s ill-judged effort to be rich. Alas! ambition makes my little less; Embittering the possess’d: Why wish for more? 70 Wishing, of all employments, is the worst; Philosophy’s reverse; and health’s decay! Were I as plump as stall’d theology, Wishing would waste me to this shade again. Were I as wealthy as a South Sea dream, Wishing is an expedient to be poor. Wishing, that constant hectic of a fool; Caught at a court; purged off by purer air, And simpler diet; gifts of rural life! Bless’d be that hand divine, which gently laid 80 My heart at rest, beneath this humble shed. The world’s a stately bark, on dangerous seas, With pleasure seen, but boarded at our peril; Here, on a single plank, thrown safe ashore, I hear the tumult of the distant throng, As that of seas remote, or dying storms: And meditate on scenes, more silent still; Pursue my theme, and fight the fear of death. 88 Here, like a shepherd gazing from his hut, Touching his reed, or leaning on his staff, Eager ambition’s fiery chace I see; I see the circling hunt, of noisy men, Burst law’s enclosure, leap the mounds of right, Pursuing, and pursued, each other’s prey; As wolves, for rapine; as the fox, for wiles; Till Death, that mighty hunter, earths them all. Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour? What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame? Earth’s highest station ends in “Here he lies:” And “Dust to dust” concludes her noblest song. 100 If this song lives, posterity shall know One, though in Britain born, with courtiers bred, Who thought even gold might come a day too late; Nor on his subtle death-bed plann’d his scheme For future vacancies in Church or State; Some avocation deeming it—to die, Unbit by rage canine of dying rich; Guilt’s blunder! and the loudest laugh of hell. O my coevals! remnants of yourselves! Poor human ruins, tottering o’er the grave! 110 Shall we, shall aged men, like aged trees, Strike deeper their vile root, and closer cling, Still more enamour’d of this wretched soil? Shall our pale, wither’d hands, be still stretch’d out, Trembling, at once, with eagerness and age? With avarice, and convulsions, grasping hard? Grasping at air! for what has earth beside? Man wants but little; nor that little, long; How soon must he resign his very dust, Which frugal nature lent him for an hour! 120 Years unexperienced rush on numerous ills; And soon as man, expert from time, has found 122 The key of life, it opes the gates of death. When in this vale of years I backward look, And miss such numbers, numbers too of such, Firmer in health, and greener in their age, And stricter on their guard, and fitter far To play life’s subtle game, I scarce believe I still survive: and am I fond of life, Who scarce can think it possible, I live? 130 Alive by miracle! or, what is next, Alive by Mead! if I am still alive, Who long have buried what gives life to live, Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought. Life’s lee is not more shallow, than impure, And vapid; sense and reason show the door, Call for my bier, and point me to the dust. O thou great arbiter of life and death! Nature’s immortal, immaterial Sun! Whose all-prolific beam late call’d me forth 140 From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay The worm’s inferior, and, in rank, beneath The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow, To drink the spirit of the golden day, And triumph in existence; and could know No motive, but my bliss; and hast ordain’d A rise in blessing! with the patriarch’s joy, Thy call I follow to the land unknown; I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust; Or life, or death, is equal; neither weighs: 150 All weight in this—O let me live to thee! Though nature’s terrors thus may be repress’d; Still frowns grim Death; guilt points the tyrant’s spear. And whence all human guilt? From death forgot. Ah me! too long I set at nought the swarm Of friendly warnings, which around me flew; 156 And smiled, unsmitten: small my cause to smile! Death’s admonitions, like shafts upwards shot, More dreadful by delay, the longer ere They strike our hearts, the deeper is their wound; O think how deep, Lorenzo! here it stings: Who can appease its anguish? How it burns! 162 What hand the barb’d, envenom’d thought can draw? What healing hand can pour the balm of peace? And turn my sight undaunted on the tomb? With joy,—with grief, that healing hand I see; Ah! too conspicuous! it is fix’d on high. On high?—What means my phrensy? I blaspheme; Alas! how low! how far beneath the skies! The skies it form’d; and now it bleeds for me— 170 But bleeds the balm I want—yet still it bleeds; Draw the dire steel—ah, no! the dreadful blessing What heart or can sustain, or dares forego? There hangs all human hope: that nail supports The falling universe: that gone, we drop; Horror receives us, and the dismal wish Creation had been smother’d in her birth— Darkness his curtain, and his bed the dust; When stars and sun are dust beneath his throne! In heaven itself can such indulgence dwell? 180 Oh, what a groan was there! a groan not his. He seized our dreadful right; the load sustained; And heaved the mountain from a guilty world. A thousand worlds, so bought, were bought too dear; Sensations new in angels’ bosoms rise; Suspend their song; and make a pause in bliss. O for their song, to reach my lofty theme! Inspire me, Night! with all thy tuneful spheres; Whilst I with seraphs share seraphic themes, And show to men the dignity of man; 190 Lest I blaspheme my subject with my song. Shall Pagan pages glow celestial flame, And Christian languish? On our hearts, not heads, Falls the foul infamy: my heart! awake. What can awake thee, unawaked by this, “Expended deity on human weal?” Feel the great truths, which burst the tenfold night Of heathen error, with a golden flood Of endless day: to feel, is to be fired; And to believe, Lorenzo! is to feel. 200 Thou most indulgent, most tremendous Power! Still more tremendous, for thy wondrous love! That arms, with awe more awful, thy commands; And foul transgression dips in sevenfold night; How our hearts tremble at thy love immense! In love immense, inviolably just! Thou, rather than thy justice should be stain’d, Didst stain the cross; and work of wonders far The greatest, that thy dearest far might bleed. Bold thought! shall I dare speak it, or repress? 210 Should man more execrate, or boast, the guilt Which roused such vengeance? which such love inflamed? O’er guilt (how mountainous!), with outstretch’d arms, Stern justice, and soft-smiling love embrace, Supporting, in full majesty, thy throne, When seem’d its majesty to need support, Or that, or man, inevitably lost: What, but the fathomless of thought divine, Could labour such expedient from despair, And rescue both? Both rescue! both exalt! 220 Oh, how are both exalted by the deed! The wondrous deed! or shall I call it more? A wonder in omnipotence itself! 223 A mystery no less to gods than men! Not, thus, our infidels th’ Eternal draw, A God all o’er, consummate, absolute, Full-orb’d, in his whole round of rays complete: They set at odds Heaven’s jarring attributes; And, with one excellence, another wound; Maim Heaven’s perfection, break its equal beams, Bid mercy triumph over—God himself, 231 Undeified by their opprobrious praise: A God all mercy, is a God unjust. Ye brainless wits! ye baptized infidels! Ye worse for mending! wash’d to fouler stains! The ransom was paid down; the fund of heaven, Heaven’s inexhaustible, exhausted fund, Amazing, and amazed, pour’d forth the price, All price beyond: though curious to compute, Archangels fail’d to cast the mighty sum: 240 Its value vast, ungrasp’d by minds create, For ever hides, and glows, in the Supreme. And was the ransom paid? It was: and paid (What can exalt the bounty more?) for you. The sun beheld it—No! the shocking scene, Drove back his chariot: midnight veil’d his face; Not such as this; not such as nature makes; A midnight nature shudder’d to behold; A midnight new! a dread eclipse (without Opposing spheres) from her Creator’s frown! 250 Sun! didst thou fly thy Maker’s pain? or start At that enormous load of human guilt, Which bow’d His blessed head; o’erwhelm’d His cross; Made groan the centre; burst earth’s marble womb, With pangs, strange pangs! deliver’d of her dead? Hell howl’d; and heaven that hour let fall a tear; Heaven wept, that men might smile! Heaven bled, that man Might never die!—— And is devotion virtue? ’Tis compell’d. 259 What heart of stone but glows at thoughts like these? Such contemplations mount us; and should mount The mind still higher; nor ever glance on man, Unraptured, uninflamed.—Where roll my thoughts To rest from wonders? Other wonders rise; And strike where’er they roll: my soul is caught: Heaven’s sovereign blessings, clustering from the cross, Rush on her, in a throng, and close her round, The prisoner of amaze!—In his bless’d life, I see the path, and, in his death, the price, And in his great ascent, the proof supreme 270 Of immortality.—And did he rise?^[14] Hear, O ye nations! hear it, O ye dead! He rose! he rose! he burst the bars of death. Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates! And give the King of glory to come in. Who is the King of glory? He who left His throne of glory, for the pang of death: Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates! And give the King of glory to come in. Who is the King of glory? He who slew 280 The ravenous foe, that gorged all human race! The King of glory, he whose glory fill’d Heaven with amazement at his love to man; And with divine complacency beheld Powers most illumined, wilder’d in the theme. The theme, the joy, how then shall man sustain? O the burst gates! crush’d sting! demolish’d throne! Last gasp of vanquish’d Death! Shout earth and heaven! This sum of good to man. Whose nature then Took wing, and mounted with him from the tomb! 290 Then, then, I rose; then first humanity 291 Triumphant pass’d the crystal ports of light (Stupendous guest!), and seized eternal youth, Seized in our name. E’er since, ’tis blasphemous To call man mortal. Man’s mortality Was then transferr’d to death; and heaven’s duration Unalienably seal’d to this frail frame, This child of dust—Man, all-immortal! hail; Hail, Heaven! all lavish of strange gifts to man! Thine all the glory; man’s the boundless bliss. 300 Where am I rapt by this triumphant theme? On Christian joy’s exulting wing, above Th’ Aonian mount?—Alas! small cause for joy! What if to pain immortal? if extent Of being, to preclude a close of woe? Where, then, my boast of immortality? I boast it still, though cover’d o’er with guilt; For guilt, not innocence, his life he pour’d; ’Tis guilt alone can justify his death; Nor that, unless his death can justify 310 Relenting guilt in Heaven’s indulgent sight. If, sick of folly, I relent; he writes My name in heaven with that inverted spear (A spear deep-dipp’d in blood!) which pierced his side, And open’d there a font for all mankind, Who strive, who combat crimes, to drink, and live: This, only this, subdues the fear of death. And what is this?—Survey the wondrous cure: And at each step, let higher wonder rise! “Pardon for infinite offence! and pardon 320 Through means that speak its value infinite! A pardon bought with blood! with blood divine! With blood divine of Him I made my foe! Persisted to provoke! though woo’d and awed, Bless’d and chastised, a flagrant rebel still! 325 A rebel, ’midst the thunders of his throne! Nor I alone! a rebel universe! My species up in arms! not one exempt! Yet for the foulest of the foul, he dies, Most joy’d, for the redeem’d from deepest guilt! As if our race were held of highest rank; And Godhead dearer, as more kind to man!” 332 Bound, every heart! and every bosom, burn! O what a scale of miracles is here! Its lowest round, high planted on the skies; Its towering summit lost beyond the thought Of man or angel! O that I could climb The wonderful ascent, with equal praise! Praise! flow for ever (if astonishment Will give thee leave) my praise! for ever flow; 340 Praise ardent, cordial, constant, to high Heaven More fragrant, than Arabia sacrificed, And all her spicy mountains in a flame. So dear, so due to Heaven, shall praise descend, With her soft plume (from plausive angel’s wing First pluck’d by man) to tickle mortal ears, Thus diving in the pockets of the great? Is praise the perquisite of every paw, Though black as hell, that grapples well for gold? O love of gold! thou meanest of amours! 350 Shall praise her odours waste on Virtue’s dead, Embalm the base, perfume the stench of guilt, Earn dirty bread by washing Æthiops fair, Removing filth, or sinking it from sight, A scavenger in scenes, where vacant posts, Like gibbets yet untenanted, expect Their future ornaments? From courts and thrones, Return, apostate praise! thou vagabond! Thou prostitute! to thy first love return, 395 Thy first, thy greatest, once unrivall’d theme. There flow redundant; like Meander flow, Back to thy fountain; to that parent Power, Who gives the tongue to sound, the thought to soar, The soul to be. Men homage pay to men, Thoughtless beneath whose dreadful eye they bow In mutual awe profound, of clay to clay, Of guilt to guilt; and turn their back on thee, Great Sire! whom thrones celestial ceaseless sing; To prostrate angels, an amazing scene! O the presumption of man’s awe for man!— 370 Man’s author! end! restorer! law! and judge! Thine, all; day thine, and thine this gloom of night, With all her wealth, with all her radiant worlds: What, night eternal, but a frown from thee? What, heaven’s meridian glory, but thy smile? And shall not praise be thine? not human praise? While heaven’s high host on hallelujahs live? O may I breathe no longer, than I breathe My soul in praise to Him, who gave my soul, And all her infinite of prospect fair, 380 Cut through the shades of hell great Love! by thee O most adorable! most unadored! Where shall that praise begin, which ne’er should end? Where’er I turn, what claim on all applause! How is night’s sable mantle labour’d o’er, How richly wrought with attributes divine! What wisdom shines! what love! This midnight pomp, This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds inlaid! Built with divine ambition! nought to thee; For others this profusion: Thou, apart, 390 Above! beyond! O tell me, mighty Mind! Where art thou? Shall I dive into the deep, Call to the sun, or ask the roaring winds, 393 For their Creator? Shall I question loud The thunder, if in that th’ Almighty dwells? Or holds He furious storms in straiten’d reins, And bids fierce whirlwinds wheel his rapid car? What mean these questions?—Trembling I retract; My prostrate soul adores the present God: Praise I a distant deity? He tunes 400 My voice (if tuned); the nerve, that writes, sustains: Wrapp’d in his being, I resound his praise: But though past all diffused, without a shore, His essence; local is his throne (as meet), To gather the dispersed (as standards call The listed from afar): to fix a point, A central point, collective of his sons, Since finite every nature but his own. The nameless He, whose nod is nature’s birth; And nature’s shield, the shadow of his hand; 410 Her dissolution, his suspended smile! The great First-Last! pavilion’d high he sits, In darkness from excessive splendour borne, By gods unseen, unless through lustre lost. His glory, to created glory, bright, As that to central horrors; he looks down On all that soars; and spans immensity. Though night unnumber’d worlds unfolds to view, Boundless creation! what art thou? A beam, A mere effluvium of his majesty: 420 And shall an atom of this atom-world Mutter, in dust and sin, the theme of heaven? Down to the centre should I send my thought Through beds of glittering ore, and glowing gems, Their beggar’d blaze wants lustre for my lay; Goes out in darkness: if, on towering wing, I send it through the boundless vault of stars! 427 The stars, though rich, what dross their gold to thee, Great, good, wise, wonderful, eternal King! If to those conscious stars thy throne around, Praise ever-pouring, and imbibing bliss; And ask their strain; they want it, more they want, Poor their abundance, humble their sublime, 433 Languid their energy, their ardour cold, Indebted still, their highest rapture burns; Short of its mark, defective, though divine. Still more—this theme is man’s, and man’s alone; Their vast appointments reach it not: they see On earth a bounty not indulged on high; And downward look for heaven’s superior praise! 440 First-born of ether! high in fields of light! View man, to see the glory of your God! Could angels envy, they had envied here; And some did envy; and the rest, though gods, Yet still gods unredeem’d (their triumphs man, Tempted to weigh the dust against the skies), They less would feel, though more adorn, my theme. They sung creation (for in that they shared); How rose in melody, that child of love! Creation’s great superior, man! is thine; 450 Thine is redemption; they just gave the key: ’Tis thine to raise, and eternize, the song; Though human, yet divine; for should not this Raise man o’er man, and kindle seraphs here? Redemption! ’twas creation more sublime; Redemption! ’twas the labour of the skies; Far more than labour—it was death in heaven. A truth so strange! ’twere bold to think it true; If not far bolder still to disbelieve. 459 Here pause, and ponder—Was there death in heaven? What then on earth? on earth, which struck the blow? Who struck it? Who?—O how is man enlarged, 462 Seen through this medium! How the pigmy towers! How counterpoised his origin from dust! How counterpoised to dust his sad return! How voided his vast distance from the skies! How near he presses on the seraph’s wing! Which is the seraph? Which the born of clay? How this demonstrates, through the thickest cloud Of guilt, and clay condensed, the son of heaven! 470 The double son; the made, and the re-made! And shall heaven’s double property be lost? Man’s double madness only can destroy. To man the bleeding cross has promised all; The bleeding cross has sworn eternal grace; Who gave his life, what grace shall he deny? O ye who, from this Rock of Ages, leap, Apostates, plunging headlong in the deep! What cordial joy, what consolation strong, Whatever winds arise, or billows roll, 480 Our interest in the Master of the storm! Cling there, and in wreck’d nature’s ruins smile; While vile apostates tremble in a calm. Man! know thyself. All wisdom centres there; To none man seems ignoble, but to man; Angels that grandeur, men o’erlook, admire: How long shall human nature be their book, Degenerate mortal! and unread by thee? The beam dim reason sheds shows wonders there; What high contents! illustrious faculties! 490 But the grand comment, which displays at full Our human height, scarce sever’d from divine, By heaven composed, was publish’d on the Cross. Who looks on that, and sees not in himself An awful stranger, a terrestrial god? 495 A glorious partner with the Deity In that high attribute, immortal life? If a god bleeds, he bleeds not for a worm: I gaze, and, as I gaze, my mounting soul Catches strange fire, eternity! at thee; And drops the world—or rather, more enjoys: How changed the face of nature! how improved! 502 What seem’d a chaos, shines a glorious world, Or, what a world, an Eden; heighten’d all! It is another scene! another self! And still another, as time rolls along; And that a self far more illustrious still. Beyond long ages, yet roll’d up in shades Unpierced by bold conjecture’s keenest ray, What evolutions of surprising fate! 510 How nature opens, and receives my soul In boundless walks of raptured thought! where gods Encounter and embrace me! What new births Of strange adventure, foreign to the sun, Where what now charms, perhaps, whate’er exists, Old time, and fair creation, are forgot! Is this extravagant? Of man we form Extravagant conception, to be just: Conception unconfined wants wings to reach him: Beyond its reach, the Godhead only, more. 520 He, the great Father! kindled at one flame The world of rationals; one spirit pour’d From spirit’s awful fountain; pour’d himself Through all their souls; but not in equal stream, Profuse, or frugal, of th’ inspiring God, As his wise plan demanded; and when past Their various trials, in their various spheres, If they continue rational, as made, Resorbs them all into himself again; 529 His throne their centre, and his smile their crown. Why doubt we, then, the glorious truth to sing, Though yet unsung, as deem’d, perhaps, too bold? Angels are men of a superior kind; Angels are men in lighter habit clad, High o’er celestial mountains wing’d in flight; And men are angels, loaded for an hour, Who wade this miry vale, and climb with pain, And slippery step, the bottom of the steep. Angels their failings, mortals have their praise; While here, of corps ethereal, such enroll’d, 540 And summon’d to the glorious standard soon, Which flames eternal crimson through the skies. Nor are our brothers thoughtless of their kin, Yet absent; but not absent from their love. Michael has fought our battles; Raphael sung Our triumphs; Gabriel on our errands flown, Sent by the Sovereign: and are these, O Man! Thy friends, thy warm allies? and thou (shame burn The cheek to cinder!) rival to the brute? Religion’s all. Descending from the skies 550 To wretched man, the goddess, in her left, Holds out this world, and, in her right, the next; Religion! the sole voucher man is man; Supporter sole of man above himself; Even in this night of frailty, change, and death, She gives the soul a soul that acts a god. Religion! Providence! an After-state! Here is firm footing; here is solid rock! This can support us; all is sea besides; Sinks under us; bestorms, and then devours. 560 His hand the good man fastens on the skies, And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl. As when a wretch, from thick polluted air, 563 Darkness, and stench, and suffocating damps, And dungeon horrors, by kind fate, discharged, Climbs some fair eminence, where ether pure Surrounds him, and Elysian prospects rise, His heart exults, his spirits cast their load; As if new-born, he triumphs in the change; So joys the soul, when, from inglorious aims, And sordid sweets, from feculence and froth 571 Of ties terrestrial, set at large, she mounts To reason’s region, her own element, Breathes hopes immortal, and affects the skies. Religion! thou the soul of happiness; And, groaning Calvary, of thee! there shine The noblest truths; there strongest motives sting; There sacred violence assaults the soul; There, nothing but compulsion is forborne. Can love allure us? or can terror awe? 580 He weeps!—the falling drop puts out the sun; He sighs—the sigh earth’s deep foundation shakes. If in his love so terrible, what then His wrath inflamed? his tenderness on fire? Like soft, smooth oil, outblazing other fires? Can prayer, can praise avert it?—Thou, my all! My theme! my inspiration! and my crown! My strength in age! my rise in low estate! My soul’s ambition, pleasure, wealth!—my world! My light in darkness! and my life in death! 590 My boast through time! bliss through eternity! Eternity, too short to speak thy praise! Or fathom thy profound of love to man! To man of men the meanest, even to me; My sacrifice! my God!—what things are these! What then art Thou? by what name shall I call thee?— Knew I the name devout archangels use, 597 Devout archangels should the name enjoy, By me unrivall’d; thousands more sublime, None half so dear as that which, though unspoke, Still glows at heart: O how omnipotence Is lost in love! Thou great Philanthropist! Father of angels! but the friend of man! 603 Like Jacob, fondest of the younger born! Thou, who didst save him, snatch the smoking brand From out the flames, and quench it in thy blood! How art thou pleased, by bounty to distress! To make us groan beneath our gratitude, Too big for birth! to favour, and confound; To challenge, and to distance all return! 610 Of lavish love stupendous heights to soar, And leave praise panting in the distant vale! Thy right, too great, defrauds thee of thy due; And sacrilegious our sublimest song. But since the naked will obtains thy smile, Beneath this monument of praise unpaid, And future life symphonious to my strain, (That noblest hymn to heaven!) for ever lie Entomb’d my fear of death! and every fear, The dread of every evil, but thy frown. 620 Whom see I yonder, so demurely smile? Laughter a labour, and might break their rest. Ye quietists, in homage to the skies! Serene! of soft address! who mildly make An unobtrusive tender of your hearts, Abhorring violence! who halt indeed; But, for the blessing, wrestle not with Heaven! Think you my song too turbulent? too warm? Are passions, then, the Pagans of the soul? Reason alone baptized? alone ordain’d 630 To touch things sacred? Oh for warmer still! 631 Guilt chills my zeal, and age benumbs my powers; Oh for an humbler heart, and prouder song! Thou, my much-injured theme! with that soft eye, Which melted o’er doom’d Salem, deign to look Compassion to the coldness of my breast; And pardon to the winter in my strain. O ye cold-hearted, frozen, formalists! On such a theme, ’tis impious to be calm; Passion is reason, transport temper, here. 640 Shall Heaven, which gave us ardour, and has shown Her own for man so strongly, not disdain What smooth emollients in theology, Recumbent virtue’s downy doctors preach, That prose of piety, a lukewarm praise? Rise odours sweet from incense uninflamed? Devotion, when lukewarm, is undevout; But when it glows, its heat is struck to heaven; To human hearts her golden harps are strung; High heaven’s orchestra chants amen to man. 650 Hear I, or dream I hear, their distant strain, Sweet to the soul, and tasting strong of heaven, Soft-wafted on celestial pity’s plume, Through the vast spaces of the universe, To cheer me in this melancholy gloom? Oh, when will death (now stingless), like a friend, Admit me of their choir? Oh, when will death This mouldering, old, partition-wall throw down? Give beings, one in nature, one abode? O Death divine! that givest us to the skies! 660 Great future! glorious patron of the past, And present! when shall I thy shrine adore? From nature’s continent, immensely wide, Immensely bless’d, this little isle of life, This dark, incarcerating colony, 665 Divides us. Happy day! that breaks our chain; That manumits;^[15] that calls from exile home; That leads to nature’s great metropolis, And re-admits us, through the guardian hand Of elder brothers, to our Father’s throne; Who hears our Advocate, and, through his wounds Beholding man, allows that tender name. 672 ’Tis this makes Christian triumph a command: ’Tis this makes joy a duty to the wise; ’Tis impious in a good man to be sad. See thou, Lorenzo! where hangs all our hope? Touch’d by the Cross, we live; or, more than die; That touch which touch’d not angels; more divine Than that which touch’d confusion into form, And darkness into glory; partial touch! 680 Ineffably pre-eminent regard! Sacred to man, and sovereign through the whole Long golden chain of miracles, which hangs From heaven through all duration, and supports In one illustrious and amazing plan, Thy welfare, nature! and thy God’s renown. That touch, with charm celestial, heals the soul Diseased, drives pain from guilt, lights life in death, Turns earth to heaven, to heavenly thrones transforms The ghastly ruins of the mouldering tomb. 690 Dost ask me when? When He who died returns; Returns, how changed! Where then the man of woe? In glory’s terrors all the Godhead burns; And all his courts, exhausted by the tide Of deities triumphant in his train, Leave a stupendous solitude in heaven; Replenish’d soon, replenish’d with increase Of pomp, and multitude; a radiant band 698 Of angels new; of angels from the tomb. Is this by fancy thrown remote? and rise Dark doubts between the promise and event? I send thee not to volumes for thy cure; Read nature; nature is a friend to truth; Nature is Christian; preaches to mankind; And bids dead matter aid us in our creed. Hast thou ne’er seen the comet’s flaming flight? Th’ illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds On gazing nations; from his fiery train Of length enormous, takes his ample round 709 Through depths of ether; coasts unnumber’d worlds, Of more than solar glory; doubles wide Heaven’s mighty cape; and then revisits earth, From the long travel of a thousand years. Thus, at the destined period, shall return He, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze: And, with him, all our triumph o’er the tomb. Nature is dumb on this important point; Or hope precarious in low whisper breathes; Faith speaks aloud, distinct; even adders hear; But turn, and dart into the dark again. 720 Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death, To break the shock blind nature cannot shun, And lands thought smoothly on the farther shore. Death’s terror is the mountain faith removes; That mountain barrier between man and peace. ’Tis faith disarms destruction; and absolves From every clamorous charge, the guiltless tomb. Why disbelieve? Lorenzo!—“Reason bids, All-sacred reason.”—Hold her sacred still; Nor shalt thou want a rival in thy flame: 730 All-sacred reason! source, and soul, of all Demanding praise, on earth, or earth above! 732 My heart is thine: deep in its inmost folds, Live thou with life; live dearer of the two. Wear I the blessed cross, by fortune stamp’d On passive nature, before thought was born? My birth’s blind bigot! fired with local zeal! No; reason re-baptized me when adult; Weigh’d true, and false, in her impartial scale; My heart became the convert of my head; 740 And made that choice, which once was but my fate. “On argument alone my faith is built:” Reason pursued is faith; and, unpursued Where proof invites, ’tis reason, then, no more: And such our proof, that, or our faith is right, Or reason lies, and Heaven design’d it wrong: Absolve we this? What, then, is blasphemy? Fond as we are, and justly fond, of faith, Reason, we grant, demands our first regard; The mother honour’d, as the daughter dear. 750 Reason the root, fair faith is but the flower; The fading flower shall die; but reason lives Immortal, as her Father in the skies. When faith is virtue, reason makes it so. Wrong not the Christian; think not reason yours: ’Tis reason our great Master holds so dear; ’Tis reason’s injured rights his wrath resents; ’Tis reason’s voice obey’d his glories crown; To give lost reason life, he pour’d his own: Believe, and show the reason of a man; 760 Believe, and taste the pleasure of a God; Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb: Through reason’s wounds alone thy faith can die; Which dying, tenfold terror gives to death, And dips in venom his twice-mortal sting. Learn hence what honours, what loud pæans^[16], due 766 To those, who push our antidote aside; Those boasted friends to reason, and to man, Whose fatal love stabs every joy, and leaves Death’s terror heighten’d, gnawing on his heart. Those pompous sons of reason idolized And vilified at once; of reason dead, Then deified, as monarchs were of old; 773 What conduct plants proud laurels on their brow? While love of truth through all their camp resounds, They draw pride’s curtain o’er the noontide ray, Spike up their inch of reason, on the point Of philosophic wit, call’d argument; And then, exulting in their taper, cry, “Behold the sun!” and, Indian-like, adore. 780 Talk they of morals? O thou bleeding Love! Thou maker of new morals to mankind! The grand morality is love of thee. As wise as Socrates, if such they were (Nor will they bate of that sublime renown), As wise as Socrates, might justly stand The definition of a modern fool. A Christian is the highest style of man: And is there, who the blessed cross wipes off, As a foul blot from his dishonour’d brow? 790 If angels tremble, ’tis at such a sight: The wretch they quit, desponding of their charge, More struck with grief or wonder, who can tell? Ye sold to sense! ye citizens of earth! (For such alone the Christian banner fly) Know ye how wise your choice, how great your gain? Behold the picture of earth’s happiest man: “He calls his wish, it comes; he sends it back, And says, he call’d another; that arrives, Meets the same welcome; yet he still calls on; 800 Till one calls him, who varies not his call, But holds him fast, in chains of darkness bound, Till nature dies, and judgment sets him free; A freedom far less welcome than his chain.” But grant man happy; grant him happy long; Add to life’s highest prize her latest hour; That hour, so late, is nimble in approach, That, like a post, comes on in full career: How swift the shuttle flies that weaves thy shroud! Where is the fable of thy former years? 810 Thrown down the gulf of time; as far from thee As they had ne’er been thine; the day in hand, Like a bird struggling to get loose, is going; Scarce now possess’d, so suddenly ’tis gone; And each swift moment fled, is death advanced By strides as swift. Eternity is all; And whose eternity? Who triumphs there? Bathing for ever in the font of bliss! For ever basking in the Deity! Lorenzo! who?—Thy conscience shall reply. 820 O give it leave to speak! ’twill speak ere long, Thy leave unask’d; Lorenzo! hear it now, While useful its advice, its accents mild. By the great edict, the divine decree, Truth is deposited with man’s last hour; An honest hour, and faithful to her trust; Truth, eldest daughter of the Deity; Truth, of his council, when he made the worlds; Nor less, when he shall judge the worlds he made; Though silent long, and sleeping ne’er so sound, 830 Smother’d with errors, and oppress’d with toys, That heaven-commission’d hour no sooner calls, But from her cavern in the soul’s abyss, Like him they fable under Ætna whelm’d, 834 The goddess bursts in thunder, and in flame; Loudly convinces, and severely pains. Dark demons I discharge, and hydra-stings; The keen vibration of bright truth—is hell: Just definition! though by schools untaught. Ye deaf to truth! peruse this parson’d page, 840 And trust, for once, a prophet, and a priest; “Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.”