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'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! 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:
The great magician's dead! Thou poor, pale piece
Of out-cast earth in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! Thy darling hope so near,
(Long-labour'd prize!) oh 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!
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 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
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:
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;
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
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 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 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 thorough 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:
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,
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 to be 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.
Dark, though not blind, like thee, Mæonides!
Or Milton! thee; ah! could I reach your strain!
Or his, who made Mæonides our own.
Man too he sung: immortal man I sing;
Oft bursts my song beyond the bounds of life;
What now, but immortality, can please?
Oh had he press'd his theme, pursued the track
Which opens out of darkness into day!
Oh had he, mounted on his wing of fire,
Soar'd where I sink, and sung immortal man!
How had it bless'd mankind, and rescued me!
TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP.
TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF WILMINGTON.
"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,
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
Death, friendship, and PHILANDER's final scene. [price,
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
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,
(0 glorious avarice !) thought of death inspires,
As ruinour'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?
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;
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;
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
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
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,
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.
Virtue, or purposed virtue, still be thine:
This cancels thy complaint at once; this leaves
In act no trifle, and no blank in time.
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