Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

And fhall we kill each day? If trifling kills,
Sure vice mull butcher.. O what heaps of flain.
Cry out for vengeance on us? Time destroy'd
Isuicide, where more than blood is spilt.

Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven invites,
Hell threatens; All exerts; in effort all:
More than creation labours !-Labours more?
And is there in creation what, amidst
This tumult univerfal, wing d difpatch,
And ardent energy, fupinely yawns ?—

Man fleeps; and man alone; and man, whose fate,
Fate irrevertible, entire, extreme,

Endlefs, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulf
A moment tremb es; drops! and man, for whom
All elfe is in alarm; man, the fole caufe
Of this furrounding ftorm! and yet he fleeps,
As the ftorm rock'd to reft.-Throw years away!
Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments feize;
Heaven's on their wing: A moment we may wish,
When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand ftill,
Bid him drive back his car, recall, retake

Fate's hafty prey; implore him reimport
The period paft, regive the given hour.
LORENZO ! more than miracles we want ;
LORENZO ! O for yesterdays to come!

Such is the language of the man awake ;
His ardour fuch, for what oppreffes thee,
And is his ardour vain ? LORENZO ! no:
That more than miracle the gods indulge.
To-day is yefterday return'd; return'd
Full-power'd to cancel, expiate, raife, adorn,
And reinftate us on the rock of peace.
Let it not share its predeceffor's fate;
Nor, like its elder filters, die a fool.
Shall it evaporate in fume? Fly off
Fuliginous, and ftain us deeper ftill?
Shall we be poorer for the plenty poor'd;
More wretched for the clemencies of Heav'n?

Where fhall I find him? Angels, tell me where

You know him! he is near you; point him out.
Shall I fee glories beaming from his brow?
Or trace his footsteps by the rifing flow'rs?
Your golden wings, now hov'ring o'er him, fhed
Protection; now are waving in applaufe
To that bleft fon of forefight! lord of fate!
That awful independent on to-morrow!
Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past;
Whofe yesterdays look backward with a smile;
Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly;
That common, but opprobrious lot! Paft hours,
If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight,
If folly bounds our profpe&t by the grave;
All feeling of futurity benumb'd;

All godlike paffion for eternals, quench'd ;;
All relish of realities expir'd;

Renounc'd all correfpondence with the skies;
Our freedom chang'd; quite winglefs our defire;
In fenfe dark-prifon'd all that ought to foar,
Prone to the centre, crawling in the duft;
Difmounted every great and glorious aim;
Embruted every faculty divine;

Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world;
The world, that gulf of fouls, immortal fouls,
Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire

To reach the distant fkies, and triumph there

On thrones which shall not mourn their masters chang'd,

Tho' we from earth; ethereal, they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man! to man.

Who venerate themselves, the world defpife.
For what, gay friend! is this efcutcheon'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 fhroud.
Life's little ftage is a fmall eminence,

Inch-high the grave above, that home of man,
Where dwells the multitude: We gaze around;
We read their monuments; we figh; and while.

We figh, we fink; and are what we deplor'd;
Lamenting, or lamented, all our lot!

Is death at diftance; No: He has been on thee;
And given fure earneft of his final blow.

Thofe hours, which lately fmil'd, where are they now?
Pallid to thought, and ghaftly? drown'd, all drown'd
In that great deep, which nothing difembogues;
And, dying, they bequeath'd thee fmall renown.
The reft 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 fun is darkness, and the ftars are duft.
Time paffes like a poft: We nothing fend
But poor Bellerophon's exprefs; our doom.
'Tis greatly wife to talk with our paft hours;
And ask them, what report they bore to heaven;
And how they might have borne more welcome news.
Their anfwers form what men Experience call;
If Wisdom's friend, her beft; if not, worfe foe.
O 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 fuccefs are tutor❜d to defpair."
Nor is it only thus, but must be fo.

Who knows not this, though grey, is ftill a child.
Loofe then from earth the grafp of fond defire;
Weigh anchor, and fome happier clime explore.

Art thou fo moor'd thou canst not difengage,
Nor give thy thoughts a ply to future scenes;
Since by Life's paffing breath, blown up from earth,
Light, as the Summer's duft, we take, in air,
A moment's giddy flight, and fall again;
Join the dull mafs, increase the trodden foil,
And fleep till earth herself shall be no more:
Since then (as emmets, their fmall world o'erthrown)
We, fore amaz'd, from our 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 defpotic will, perhaps one hour,

(O how omnipotent is Time !) decrees;
Should not each warning give a ftrong alarm;
Warning, far lefs than that of bofom torn
From bofom, bleeding o'er the facred dead!
Should not each dial trike us as we país,
Portentous, as the written wall which truck,
O'er midnight-bowls, the proud Afyrian pale,
Erewhile high flufh'd with infolence and wine?
Like that the dial speaks; and points to thee,
LORENZO! loath to break the banquet up:
"O man, thy kingdom is departing from thee;
"And while it lasts, is emptier than my fhade."
Its filent language fuch : Nor need'ft thou call
Thy Magi, to decypher what it means.

Know, like the Median, face is in thy walls:
Doft afk, how? whence? Belfbazzar-like, amaz'd!
Man's make inclofes the fure feeds of death;
Life feeds the murderer: Ingrate! he thrives
On her own meal; and then his nurse devours.
But here,ORENZO, the delufion lies ;
That folar fhadow, as it meafures life,
It life refembles too: Life fpeeds away
From point to point. though feeming to ftand ftill:
The cunning fugitive is fwift by ftealth;
Too fubtle is the movement to be feen:
Yet foon man's hour is up and we are gone.
Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time:
As thefe are ufelefs when the fun is fet;
So thofe, but when more glorious Reafon fhines.
Reafon fhould judge in all In Reafou's cye,
That fedantary fhadow travels hard;
But fuch our gravitation to the wrong,
So prone our hearts to whisper what we wish,
'Tis later with the wife than he's aware.

A Wilmington goes flower than the fun;
And all mankind miftake their time of day;
Ev'n age itself: Fresh hopes are hourly fown
In furrow'd brows. So gentle life's defcent,
We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain :

We take fair days in winter for the spring:
And turn our bleffings into bane. Since oft
Man must compute that age he cannot feel,
He fcarce believes he's older for his years.
Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in store
"One disappointment fure to crown the rest
The difappointment of a promised hour.

;

On this, or fimilar, PHILANDER ! thou,
Whofe mind was moral as the preacher's tongue
And ftrong, to wield all science worth the name;
How often we talk'd down the fummer's fun,
And cool'd our paffions by the breezy ftream!
How often thaw'd and fhorten'd winter's eve,
By conflict kind, that ftruck our latent truth;
Beft found, fo fought; to the reclufe more coy!
Thoughts difentangle paffing o'er the lip;
Clean runs the thread; if not, 'tis thrown away,
Or kept to tie up nonsense for a song;
Song, fafhionably fruitlefs! fuch as ftains
The fancy, and unhallow'd paffion fires.;
Chiming her faints to Cytheria's fane.

Know't thou, LORENZO, what a friend contains?
As bees mix'd nectar draw from fragrant flow'rs,
So men from FRIENDSHIP, wisdom and delight :
Twins ty'd by Nature, if they part, they die.
Haft thou no friend to fet thy mind abroach?
Good fenfe will ftagnate: Thoughts fhut up, want air,
And fpoil, like bales unopened to the fun.

Had thought been all, sweet speech had been deny'd;
Speech, thought's canal! Speech, thought's criterion.

too!

Thought in the mine, may come fortly gold or drofs;
When coin'd in words, we know its real worth.
If fterling, ftore it for thy future ufe ;
'Twill buy thee benefit; perhaps, renown.
Thought too, deliver'd, is the more poffefs'd,
Teaching, we learn; and, giving, we retain
The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot.
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire;

« AnteriorContinuar »