How horrid all to thought!-but horrors, these,
That vouch the truth, and aid my feeble song.
From vice, sense, fancy, no man can be bless'd:
Bliss is too great to lodge within an hour:
When an immortal being aims at bliss,
Duration is essential to the name.
O for a joy from reason! joy from that
Which makes man man, and, exercis'd aright,
Will make him more: a bounteous joy! that gives
And promises; that weaves, with art divine,
The richest prospect into present peace;
A joy ambitious! joy in common held
With thrones ethereal, and their greater far:
A joy high-privileg'd from chance, time, death!
A joy which death shall double, judgment crown!
Crown'd higher, and still higher, at each stage,
Through bless'd eternity's long day, yet still
Not more remote from sorrow than from him
Whose lavish hand, whose love stupendous, pours
So much of Deity on guilty dust.
There, O my Lucia! may I meet thee there,
Where not thy presence can improve my bliss!
Affects not this the sages of the world?
Can nought affect them, but what fools them too?
Eternity depending on an hour,
Makes serious thought man's wisdom, joy, and praise.
Nor need you blush (though sometimes your designs
May shun the light) at your designs on Heaven;
Sole point! where overbashful is your blame.
Are you not wise?-you know you are: yet hear
One truth, amid your numerous schemes mislaid,
Or overlook'd, or thrown aside, if seen;
Our schemes to plan by this world or the next,
Is the sole difference between wise and fool.'
All worthy men will weigh you in this scale:
What wonder, then, if they pronounce you light?
Is their esteem alone not worth your care?
Accept my simple scheme of common sense,
Thus save your fame, and make two worlds your own.
The world replies not;-but the world persists,
And puts the cause off to the longest day,
Planning evasions for the day of doom:
So far, at that re-hearing, from redress,
They then turn witnesses against themselves.
Hear that, Lorenzo! nor be wise to-morrow.
Haste, haste! a man, by nature, is in haste!
For who shall answer for another hour?
"Tis highly prudent to make one sure friend,
And that thou canst not do this side the skies.
Ye sons of Earth! (nor willing to be more!)
Since verse you think from priestcraft somewhat free,
Thus, in an age so gay, the Muse plain truths
(Truth's which, at church, you might have heard in
Has ventur'd into light, well pleas'd the verse [prose)
Should be forgot, if you the truths retain,
And crown her with your welfare, not your praise.
But praise she need not fear: I see my fate,
And headlong leap, like Curtius, down the gulf,
Since many an ample volume, mighty tome,
Must die, and die unwept; O thou minute,
Devoted page! go forth among thy foes;
Go, nobly proud of martyrdom for truth,
And die a double death: mankind, incens'd,
Denies thee long to live; nor shalt thou rest
When thou art dead, in Stygian shades arraign'd
By Lucifer, as traitor to his throne,
And bold blasphemer of his friend,-the World!
The world, whose legions cost him slender pay,
And volunteers around his banner swarm,
Prudent as Prussia in her zeal for Gaul.
Are all, then, fools?" Lorenzo cries.-Yes, all
But such as hold this doctrine, (new to thee)
The mother of true wisdom is the will,'
The noblest intellect, a fool without it.
World-wisdom much has done, and more may do,
In arts and sciences, in wars and peace;
But art and science, like thy wealth, will leave thee,
And make thee twice a beggar at thy death.
This is the most indulgence can afford,-
Thy wisdom all can do but-make thee wise."
Nor think this censure is severe on thee;
Satan, thy master, I dare call a dunce.
Containing, among other things,
I. AMORAL SURVEY OF THE NOCTURNAL HEAVENS. II. A NIGHT-ADDRESS TO THE DEITY.
Inscribed to his Grace the Duke of Newcastle.
-Fatis contraria Fata rependens.
As when a traveller, a long day past
In painful search of what he cannot find,
At night's approach, content with the next cot,
There ruminates a while his labour lost,
Then cheers his heart with what his fate affords,
And chants his sonnet to deceive the time,
Till the due season calls him to repose;
Thus I, long travell'd in the ways of men,
And dancing, with the rest, the giddy maze,
Where Disappointment smiles at Hope's career,
Warn'd by the langour of life's evening ray,
At length have hous'd me in an humble shed,
Where, future wandering banish'd from my thought,
And waiting, patient, the sweet hour of rest,
I chase the moments with a serious song.
Song soothes our pains, and age has pains to soothe.
When age,care,crime,and friends,embrac'd at heart,
Torn from my bleeding breast, and death's dark shade,
Which hovers o'er me, quench th' etherial fire,
Canst thou, O Night! indulge one labour more?
One labour more indulge! then sleep, my strain!
Till, haply, wak'd by Raphael's golden lyre,
Where night, death, age, care, crime and sorrow
To bear a part in everlasting lays;
Though far, far higher set, in aim, I trust,
Symphonious to this humble prelude here.
Has not the Muse asserted pleasures pure,
Like those above, exploding other joys?
Weigh what was urg'd, Lorenzo! fairly weigh,
And tell me, hast thou cause to triumph still?
I think thou wilt forbear a boast so bold:
But if, beneath the favour of mistake,
Thy smile's sincere, not more sincere can be
Lorenzo's smile than my compassion for him.
The sick in body call for aid; the sick
In mind are covetous of more disease,
And when at worst, they dream themselves quite well.
To know ourselves diseas'd is half our cure.
When Nature's blush by custom is wip'd off,
And conscience, deaden'd by repeated strokes,
Has into manners naturaliz'd our crimes,
The curse of curses is our curse to love,
To triumph in the blackness of our guilt,
(As Indians glory in the deepest jet)
And throw aside our senses with our peace.
But grant no guilt, no shame, no least alloy;
Grant joy and glory quite unsullied shone;
Yet, still, it ill deserves Lorenzo's heart.
No joy, no glory, glitters in thy sight,
But, through the thin partition of an hour,
I see its sables wove by Destiny,
And that in sorrow buried, this in shame,
While howling furies ring the doleful knell,
And Conscience, now so soft thou scarce can'st hear
Her whisper, echoes her eternal peal.
Where the prime actors of the last year's scene,
Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume?
How many sleep, who kept the world awake
With lustre and with noise! Has Death proclaim'd
A truce, and hung his sated lance on high?
"Tis brandish'd still, nor shall the present year
Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or spread, of feeble life, a thinner fall.
But needless monuments to wake the thought; Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality, Though in a style more florid, full as plain As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs. What are our noblest ornaments, but Deaths Turn'd flatterers of Life in paint or marble, The well-stain'd canvass, or the featur'd stone? Our fathers grace, or rather haunt the scene. Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.
'Profess'd diversions! cannot these escape?"-
Far from it: these present us with a shroud,
And talk of death, like garlands o'er a grave.
As some bold plunderers for buried wealth,
We ransack tombs for pastime; from the dust
Call up the sleeping hero; bid him tread
The scene for our amusement. How like gods.
We sit, and, wrapt in immortality,
Shed generous tears on wretches born to die;
Their fate deploring, to forget our own!
What all the pomps and triumphs of our lives
But legacies in blossom? Our lean soil,
Luxuriant grown, and rank in vanities,
From friends interr'd beneath, a rich manure!
Like other worms, we banquet on the dead;
Like other worms, shall we crawl on, nor know
Our present frailties or approaching fate?
Lorenzo! such the glories of the world!
What is the world itself? thy world-a grave.
Where is the dust that has not been alive?
The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors.
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons.
O'er devastation we blind revels keep:
Whole buried towns support the dancer's heel.
The moist of human frame the sun exhales;
Winds scatter through the mighty void the dry:
Earth repossesses part of what she gave,
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