Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Fate! drop the curtain

; I can lofe no more. Silence and Darkness! folemn fifters! twins

From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought
To Reason, and on Reason build Resolve,

(That column of true majefty in man),
Affift me: I will thank you in the grave;

The grave your kingdom: There this frame fhall fall A victim facred to your dreary fhrine.

But what are ye ?-

THOU, who didft put to flight

Primæval Silence, when the morning stars

Exulting, fhouted o'er the rising ball;

O THOU! whofe word from folid Darkness ftruck
That fpark, the fun; ftrike wisdom from my foul ;
My foul, which flies to thee, her truft, her treafure,
As mifers to their gold, while others reft.
Through this opaque of nature, and of soul,
This double night, tranfmit one pitying ray,
To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe),
Lead it through various scenes of
And from each fcene the nobleft infpire.
Nor lefs infpire my conduct, than my song;
Teach my best reason, reafon; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm refolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear.
Nor let the vial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

truth and Death

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 found. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours,

Where are they; with the years beyond the food.
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 fathomlefs abyfs;
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 center'd in our make such strange extremes !
From different natures, marvellously mixt,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Diftinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, fully'd and abforpt !
Tho' fully'd and difhonour'd, ftill divine!
Dim miniature of greatness 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, furpriz'd, aghaft,
And wondering at her own; How reafon reels!
O what a miracle to man is man.

Triumphantly diftrefs'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately tranfported, and alarm'd !

What can preferve my life? or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't fnatch me from my grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

Tis paft conjecture; all things rife in proof; While o'er my limbs fleep's foft dominion spreads, What tho' my foul fantastic measures trod O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathlefs woods; or, down the craggy fleep Hurl'd headlong, fwarm with pain the mantled pool! Or fcal'd the cliff; or danc'd on hollow winds, With antic fhapes? wild natives of the brain! Her ceafelefs flight, though devious, fpeaks her nature Of fubtler effence than the trodden elod; Active, aerial, towering, unconfin'd, Unfetter'd with her grofs companion's fall. Ev'n filent night proclaims my foul immortal. Ev'a filent night proclaims eternal day.

B

For human weal heav'n husbands all events,
Dull fleep inftructs; nor fport vain dreams in vain.
Why then their loss deplore, that are not loft ?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around
In infidel diftrefs? Are angels there?

Slumbers, rak'd up in duft, ethereal fire?
They live! they greatly live a life on earth
Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an eye
Of tendernefs, 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 fhades!
All, allon earth is fhadow; all beyond
Is fubftance; the reverfe 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, flumbering in his fire.
Embryos we must be, till we burft the fhell,
Yon ambient azure fhell, and spring to life;
The life of gods, (O transport !) and of man.
Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thought
Inters celestial hopes without one figh;
Prifoner of earth, and pent beneaththe moon.
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by heaven
To fly at infinite; and reach it there,
Where feraphs 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!

¡pire!

Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death ex-
And is it in the flight of threescore years
To push eternity from human thought,
And fmother fouls immortal in the duft?
A foul immortal, fpending all her fires,
Wafting her ftrength in ftrenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge,
Refembles ocean into tempeft wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

Where falls this cenfure? It o'erwhelms myself.
How was my heart incrufted by the world!
O how felf-fettered was my groveling foul !
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 endlefs 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 fleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the toffing wave!
Eternal funfhine in the ftorms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joyз ;
Joy behind joy, in endless perfpective!
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 mouldering 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 every breeze.
O ye bleft scenes of permanent delight!
Full above meafure! 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 unparadife the realms of light."
Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling fpheres;
The baleful influence of whofe giddy dance
Sheds fad viciffitude 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 fickle, emulous

Of Time's enormous fcythe, whofe ample sweep
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays,
His little weapon in the narrower sphere

Of weet domeftic comfort, and cuts down
The faireft bloom of fublunary blifs..

Blifs! fublunary blifs !-Proud words, and vain ! Implicit treafon to divine decree !

A bold invafion of the rights of heaven!
I clafp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
O had I weigh'd it e're 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 fun himself by thy permiffion fhines;
And, one day, thou fhalt pluck him from his sphere.
Amid fuch mighty plunder, why exhaust
Thy partial quiver on a mark fo mean?
Why thy peculiar rancour wreak'd on me?
Infatiate archer! could not one fuffice?

Thy fhaft flew thrice and thrice my peace was flain;
And thrice, e're thrice, yon moon had filled her horn.
O Cynthia! why fo pale? doft thou lament

Thy wretched neighbour? grieve to fee thy wheel.
Of ceafelefs change outwhirl'd in human life?

How wanes my borrowed blifs! From Fortunes smile,
Precarious courtesy! not Virtues fure,
Self-given, folar ray of found delight.

In every vary'd posture, place, and hour,

« AnteriorContinuar »