On earthly bliss; it breaks at every iqeeze.
O ye blest scenes of permanent dengut!
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,
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

Of lime's enormous sithe, 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!

A bold invasion of the rights of Heav'n!
I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
O 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.
Amidst such mighty plunder, why exhaust
Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean?
Why thy peculiar rancour wreck'd on me?
Insatiate archer! could not one suffice!

Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slaiu;
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 chance outwhirl'd in human life!

How wanes my borrow'd bliss! from Fortune's smile,
Precarious courtesy not virtue's sure,

Self-given, solar, ray of sound delight.

In ev'ry varied posture, place, and hour
How widow'd ev'ry thought of ev'ry joy!
Thought, busy thought! Too busy for my peace!
Through the dark postern of time long elapsed,
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 num'rous train!
I rae the riches of my former fate;

Sweet Comfort's blasted clusters I lament;
I tremble at the blessings once so dear,
And ev'ry 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 meu? are angels all beside?
I mourn for mons; 'tis the common lot :
In this shape on that has Fate entail'd
The mother's throes on all of woman born,
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,
In battle lopp'd away, with half their limbs,

Beg hitter bread through realms their valour saved,
If so the tyrant on his minion doom.
Want and incurable disease, (fell pair !)
On hopeless multitudos 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 !

To shock us more, solicit it in vain!

Ye silken sons of Pleasure! since in pains

You 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 chasest temperance,
And punishment the guiltless, and alarm,
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 herself 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!

And what hostilities without a foe!

Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.

Bat endless is the list of human ills,

And sighs might sooner fail than cause to sigh.
A part how small of the terraqueous globe
Is tenan.ed 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,
Rav'nous calamities our vitals seize,

And threat'ning 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:
More gen'rous 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 thon! whate'er thou art, whose heart exults!
Would thou I should congratulate thy fate?

I know thou wouldst; 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 of her delay;
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 Heav'n tremendous in its frowns? most sure;
And in its favours formidable too :

Its favours here are trials, not rewards;

A call to duty, not discharge from care;
And should alarm us full as much as woes;
Awake us to their cause and consequence,
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,
With rage envenom'à 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, condemus his joys to death.

Mine died with thee, Philander! thy last sigh
Dissolved the charm; the disenchanted earth
Lost all her lustre. Where her glitt'ring tow'rs!
Her golden mountains where? all darken'd down
To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears:
The great magician's dead! Thou poor pale piece
Of outcast earth, in darkness! what a change
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, treach'rous 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!
Man's foresight is conditionally wise;
Lorenzo! 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

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 the ight can ise
That man's press uption 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

Our mountain-hopes, spin out eternal schemes,
As we the Fatal Sisters could outspin,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.

Not e'en Philander had bespoke his shroud,
Nor had he cause; a warning was denied:
How many fall as sudden, not as safe;
As sudden, though for years admonish'd home
Of human ills the last extreme beware

ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY. 9
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;
Thus on, til! 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
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 applauds :
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's vails;
That lodged in Fate's, to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose they postpone :
'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 ev'ry stage: when young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,

Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,

As dateous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
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 thro' 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,
The parted wave no furrow from the keel,
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
E'en with the tender tear, which nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their
Can I forget Philander? that were strange!
grave.
O my full heart f---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 mora;
Grief's sharpest thorn hard pressing on my breast,

B