Behold th' inexorable hour at hand! Behold th' inexorable hour forgot! And to forget it the chief aim of life, Though well to ponder it is life's chief end. Is Death, that ever threat'ning, ne'er remote, That all important, and that only fure, {Come when he will), an unexpelled guest?? Nay though invited by the loudest calls Of blind Imprudence, unexpected till; Though num'rous meffengers are fent before, To warn his great arrival. What the cause, The wond'rous cause of this mysterious ill? All Heav'n looks down astonish'd at the fight. Is it, that Life has fown her joys fo thick, We can't thrust.in a fingle care between? Is it, that Life has fuch a fwarm of cares, The thought of Death can't enter for the throng?4 Is it, that Time fteals on with downy feet, Nor wakes Indulgence from her golden dream? To-day is fo like yesterday, it cheats; We take the lying filter for the fame. Life glides away, LORENZO ! like a brook ; For ever changing, unperceiv'd the change. In the fame brook none ever bath'd him twice: To the fame life none ever twice awoke. We call the brook the fame; the fame we think Our life, though still more rapid on its flow; Nor mark the much irrevocably laps'd, And mingled with the fea. Or fhall we fay, (Retaining till the brook to bear us on), That life is like a vessel on the stream ? In life embark'd, we fmoothly down the tide Of Time defcend, but not on Time intent; Amus'd, unconfcious of the gliding wave; Till on a fudden we perceive a fhock;
We ftart; awake; look out: What fee we there ? Our brittle bark is burst on Charon's fhore.
Is this the caufe Death flies all human thought! Or is it Judgment by the Will ftruck blind, That domineering miftrefs of the foul!
Like him fo ftrong by Delilah the fair?
Or is it Fear turns ftartled Reafon back,
From looking down a precipice fo ftcep?
'Tis dreadful; and the dread is wifely plac'd,
By Nature, confcious of the make of man.
A dreadful friend it is, a terror kind,
A flaming fword to guard the tree of life.
By that unaw'd, in life's moft fmiling hour,
The good man would repine; would fuffer joys,
And burn impatient for his promis'd fkies.
The bad, on each punctilious pique of pride,
Or gloom of humour, would give rage the rein,
Bound o'er the barrier, rush into the dark,
And mar the schemes of Providence below.
What groan was that LORENZO ?-Furies! rife ;.
And drown in your lefs execrable yell,
Britannia's fhame. There took her gloomy flight,
On wing impetuous, a black fullen foul,
Blafted from hell with horrid luft of death.
Thy friend, the brave, the gallant Altamont,
So call'd, fo thought-and then he fled the field.
Lefs bafe the fear of death, than fear of life.
O Britain infamous for fuicide!
An island in thy manners! far disjoin'd
From the whole world of rationals befide!
In ambient waves plunge thy polluted head,
Wafh the dire ftain, nor fhock the Continent.
But thou be fhock'd, while I detect the caufe
Of felf-affault, expofe the monfter's birth,
And bid abhorrence hifs it round the world.
Blame not thy clime, nor chide the distant fun ;-
The fun is innocent, thy clime abfolv'd;
Immortal climes kind Nature never made..
The caufe I fing in Eden might prevail,
And proves it is thy folly, not thy fate.
The foul of man, (let man in homage bow,
Who names his foul) a native of the fkies!
High-born, and free, her freedom should maintain,
Unfold, unmortgag'd for Earth's little bribes.
Th' illuftrious ftranger, in this foreign land,
Like ftrangers, jealous of her dignity,
Studious of home, and ardent to return,
Of Earth fufpicious, Earth's inchanted cup
With cool referve light touching, should indulge,,
On immortality, her godlike tafte;
There take large draughts; make her chief banquet
But fome reject the fuftenance divine;
To beggarly vile appetites descend;
Afk alms of Earth, for guests that came from Heav'n ; ·
Sink into flaves, and fell for present hire
Their rich reverfion, and (what fhares its fate)
Their native freedom, to the prince who sways
This nether world. And when his payments fail ;;
When his foul basket gorges them no more,
Or their pall'd palates loathe the basket full;
Are inftantly, with wild demoniac rage,
For breaking all the chains of Providence,
And bursting their confinement; tho' fast barr'd
By laws divine and human; guarded strong
With horrors doubled to defend the pass,
The blackeft, nature, or dire-guilt, can raife
And moated round, with fathomless deftruction,
Sure to receive, and whelm them in their fall.
Such Britons is the cause to you unknown,
Or worse, o'erlook'd; o'erlook'd by magiftrates,
Thus criminals themselves. I grant the deed
Is madnefs; but the madness of the heart.
And what is that? our utmoft bound of guilt.
A fenfual, unreflecting life, is big
With monstrous births, and fuicide, to crown
The black infernal brood.
Heav'ns law fupreme, and defperately rush
Thro' facred Nature's murder, on their own,
Because they never think of death, they die.
'Tis equally man's duty, glory, gain,
At once to fhun and meditate his end.
When By the bed of languifhment we fit,
(The feat of Wisdom! if our choice, not fate)-
Or o'er our dying friends, in anguish hang,
Wipe the cold dew, or ftay the finking head,
Number their moments, and in ev'ry clock,
Start at the voice of an eternity;
See the dim lamp of life juft feebly lift
An agonizing beam, at us to gaze,
Then fink again, and quiver into death,
That most pathetic herald of our own:
How read we fuch fad fcenes? As fent to man
In perfect vengeance? No ; in pity fent,
To melt him down like wax, and then impreft,
Indelible, Death's image on his heart;
Bleeding for others, trembling for himself,
We bleed, we tremble, we foget; we smile.
The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry.
Our quick-returning folly cancels all;
As the tide rufhing rafes what is writ
In yielding fands, and smoothes the letter'd fhore.
LORENZO haft thou ever weigh'd a figh,
Or ftudy'd the philofophy of tears?
(A fcience, yet unlector'd in our schools!
Haft thou defcended deep into the breaft,
And feen their fource? If not, defcend with me,
And trace these briny riv❜lets to their springs.
Qur fun'ral tears from diff'rent causes rise;
As if from fep'rate cifterns in the foul,
Of various kinds, they flow. From tender hearts,
By foft contagion call'd, fome burst at once,
And ftream obfequious to the leading eye.
Some afk more time, by curious art distill'd.
Some hearts, in fecret hard, unapt to melt,
Struck by the magic of the public eye,
Like Mofes' fmitten rock gush out amain.
Some weep to share the fame of the deceas'd,
So high in merit, and to them fo dear :
They dwell on praises, which they think they fhare;
And thus, without a blufh, commend themselves.
Some mourn, in proof that fomething they could love;
They weep not to relieve their grief, but shew.
Some weep in perfect juftice to the dead,
As confcious all their love is in arrear.
Some mischievously weep: Not unappriz❜d.
Tears, fometimes, aid the conquest of an eye.
With what addrefs the foft Ephefians drew
Their fable net-work o'er entangled hearts!
As feen thro' crystal, how their rofes glow,
While liquid pearl runs trickling down their check!
Of her's not prouder Egypt's wanton queen,
Caroufing gems, herself diffolv'd in love.
Some weep at Death, abftracted from the dead,
And celebrate, like CHARLES, their own decease.
By kind construction fome are deem'd to weep,
Because a decent veil conceals their joy.
Some weep in earnest, and yet weep in vain;
As deep in indifcretion, as in woe.
Paffion, blind paffion! impotently pours
Tears, that deferve more tears; while Reafon fleeps,
Or gazes, like an idiot, unconcern'd;
Nor comprehends the meaning of the storm;
Knows not it speaks to her, and her alone.
Irrationals all forrow are beneath,
That noble gift! that privilege of man!
From Sorrow's pang, the birth of endless joy.
But these are barren of that birth divine:
They weep impetuous, as the fummer-ftorm,
And full as fhort! the cruel grief foon tam'd,
They make a paftime of the ftinglefs tale ;
Far as the deep refounding knell, they fpread
The dreadful news, and hardly feel it more.
No grain of wifdem pays them for their wo.
Half round the globe, the tears pump't up by Death
Are fpent in wat ring vanities of life;
In making Folly flourish flill more fair.
When the fick foul, her wonted ftay withdrawn,
Reclines on earth, and forrows in the duft ;
Inftead of learning, there, her true support,
Tho' there thrown down her true fupport to learn ;
Without Heav'ns aid, impatient to bebleft,
She crawls to the next fhrub, or bramble vile,
Tho' from the flately cedar's arms fhe fell;
|