The Bell ftrikes One. We take no Note of Time,
But from its Lofs. To give it then a Tongue,
Is wife in Man. As if an Angel spoke,
I feel the folemn Sound. If heard aright,
It is the Knell of my departed Hours:
Where are they? With the Years beyond the Flood.
It is the Signal that demands Difpatch;
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 furely mine!
And can Eternity belong to me,
Poor Penfioner on the Bounties of an Hour?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how auguft,
How complicate, how wonderful, is Man?
How paffing wonder HE, who made him fuch?
Who centred in our Make fuch ftrange Extremes ?
From diff'rent Natures marvelously mixt,
Connection exquifite of diftant Worlds!
Diftinguifht Link in Being's endless Chain !
Midway from Nothing to the Deity!
A Beam etherial fully'd, and abforpt!
Tho' fully'd, and dishonour'd, still Divine!
Dim Miniature of Greatnefs abfolute !
An Heir of Glory! a frail Child of Duft!
Helpless Immortal! Infect infinite!
A Worm! a God!-I tremble at myself,
And in myself am loft! At home a Stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, furpris'd, aghaft,
And wond'ring at her own: How Reafon reels!
O what a Miracle to Man is Man,
Triumphantly diftrefs'd! what Joy, what Dread!
Alternately transported, and alarm'd!
What can preserve my Life? or what destroy?
An Angel's Arm can't fnatch me from the Grave;
Legions of Angels can't confine me There.
"Tis paft Conjecture; all things rife in Proof:
While o'er my Limbs Sleep's foft Dominion spread,
What, tho' my Soul phantaftic Measures trod
O'er Fairy Fields; or mourn'd along the Gloom
Of pathless Woods; or down the craggy Steep
Hurl'd headlong, fwam with Pain the mantled Pool;
Or fcal'd the Cliff; or danc'd on hollow Winds,
With antic Shapes, wild Natives of the Brain?
Her ceafeless Flight, tho' devious, speaks her Naturę
Of fubtler Effence than the trodden Clod;
Active, aërial, tow'ring, unconfin'd,
Unfetter'd with her grofs Companion's Fall.
Ev'n filent Night proclaims my Soul immortal:
Ev'n filent Night proclaims eternal Day.
For human Weal, Heav'n husbands all Events,
Dull Sleep inftructs, nor fport vain Dreams in vain.
Why then their Lofs deplore, that are not loft? Why wanders wretched Thought their Tombs around, In infidel Diftrefs? Are Angels there?
Slumbers, rak'd up in duft, Etherial Fire?
They live! they greatly live a Life on Earth
Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an Eye
Of Tenderness, let heav'nly Pity fall
On me, more juftly number'd with the Dead.
This is the Defart, this the Solitude:
How populous! how vital, is the Grave!
This is Creation's melancholy Vault,
The Vale funereal, the fad Cypress Gloom;
The Land of Apparitions, empty Shades!
All, all on Earth is Shadow, all beyond
Is Subftance; the Reverse is Folly's Creed:
How folid all, where Change shall be no more?
This is the Bud of Being, the dim Dawn,
The Twilight of our Day, the Vestibule.
Life's Theatre as yet is fhut, and Death,
Strong Death, alone can heave the maffy Bar,
This grofs 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,
The future Embryo, flumb'ring 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
Interrs celeftial Hopes without one Sigh.
Pris'ner of Earth, and pent beneath the Moon,
Here pinions all his Wishes; wing'd by Heav'n
To fly at Infinite; and reach it there,
Where Seraphs gather Immortality,
On Life's fair Tree, faft by the Throne of God.
What golden Joys ambrofial cluft'ring glow,
In HIS full Beam, and ripen for the Juft,
Where momentary Ages are no more!
Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death expire!
And is it in the Flight of threefcore Years,
To push Eternity from human Thought,
And fmother Souls immortal in the Duft?
A Soul immortal, fpending all her Fires,
Wafting her Strength in ftrenuous Idleness,
Thrown into Tumult, raptur'd, or alarm'd,
At ought this Scene can threaten, or indulge,
Refembles Ocean into Tempest wrought,
To waft a Feather, or to drown a Fly.
Where falls this Cenfure? It o'erwhelms myself.
How was my Heart incrusted by the World!
O how felf-fetter'd was my groveling Soul!
How, like a Worm, was I wrapt round and round
In filken Thought, which reptile Fancy fpun,
Till darken'd Reafon lay quite clouded o'er
With foft Conceit of endless Comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her Wings to reach the Skies!
Night-vifions may befriend (as fung above): Our waking Dreams are fatal. How I dreamt
Of things Impoffible? (Could Sleep do more?)
Of Joys perpetual in perpetual Change?
Of ftable Pleasures on the toffing Wave?
Eternal Sunfhine in the Storms of Life?
How richly were my noon-tide Trances hung
With gorgeous Tapestries of pictur'd Joys?
Joy behind Joy, in endless Perspective!
Till at Death's Toll, whofe reftlefs Iron Tongue
Calls daily for his Millions at a Meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Where now my Frenzy's pompous Furniture?
The cobweb'd Cottage, with its ragged Wall
Of mould'ring Mud, is Royalty to me!
The Spider's moft attenuated Thread
Is Cord, is Cable, to Man's tender Tie
On earthly Blifs; it breaks at ev'ry Breeze.
O ye bleft Scenes of permanent Delight!
Full, above measure! lafting, beyond Bound!
A Perpetuity of Blifs, is Blifs.
Could you, fo rich in Rapture, fear an End,
That ghaftly Thought would drink up all your Joy,
And quite unparadise the Realms of Light.
Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling Spheres;
The baleful Influence of whofe giddy Dance
Sheds fad Viciffitude on all beneath.
Here teems the Revolutions ev'ry Hour;
And rarely for the better; or the best,
More mortal than the common Births of Fate.
Each Moment has its Sickle, emulous
Of Time's enormous Scythe, whofe ample Sweep
Strikes Empires from the Root; each Moment plays
His little Weapon in the narrower Sphere
Of sweet domeftic Comfort, and cuts down
The fairest Bloom of fublunary Bliss.
Blifs! fublunary Blifs!-Proud Words, and vain! Implicit Treason to divine Decree!
A bold Invafion of the Rights of Heav'n!
I clafp'd the Phantoms, and I found them Air.
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond Embrace!
What Darts of Agony had mifs'd my Heart!
Death! Great Proprietor of All! 'tis thine
To tread out Empire, and to quench the Stars.
The Sun himself by thy Permiffion shines;
And, one Day, thou fhalt pluck him from his Sphere.
Amid fuch mighty Plunder, why exhauft
Thy partial Quiver on a Mark fo mean?
Why thy peculiar Rancour wreck'd on me?
Infatiate Archer! could not one One fuffice?
Thy Shaft flew thrice; and thrice my Peace was flain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon Moon had fill'd her Horn.
O Cynthia! why fo pale? Doft thou lament
Thy wretched Neighbour? Grieve to fee thy Wheel
Of ceaseless Change outwhirl'd in human Life?
How wanes my borrow'd Blifs! from Fortune's Smile,
Precarious Courtesy! not Virtue's fure,
Self-given, folar, Ray of found Delight.
In ev'ry vary'd Pofture, Place, and Hour,
How widow'd ev'ry Thought of ev'ry Joy!
Thought, bufy Thought! too bufy for my Peace!
Thro' the dark Postern of Time long elaps'd,
Led foftly, by the Stilnefs of the Night,
Led, like a Murderer, (and fuch it proves!)
Strays, (wretched Rover!) o'er the vaning Pat
In queft of Wretchedness perverfely strays;
And finds all defart now; and meets the Ghofts
Of my departed Joys; a num'rous Train!
I rue the Riches of my former Fate;
Sweet Comfort's blafted Clufters I lament;
I tremble at the Bleffings once fo dear;
And ev'ry Pleasure pains me to the Heart.
Yet why complain? or why complain for One?
Hangs out the Sun his Luftre but for me,
The fingle Man? Are Angels all befide?
I mourn for Millions: 'Tis the common Lot;
In this Shape, or in that, has Fate entail'd
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