And is his ardour vain, Lorenzo ? No; 320 Where shall I find Him ? Angels ! tell me where. 325 You know him : He is near you : Point him out: Shall I fee glories beaming from his brow? Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers ? Your golden wings, now hovering o'er him, med Protection; now, are waving in applause 330 To that blest son of forefight! lord of fate! That awful independent on To-morrow! Whose work is done.; who triumphs in the Past; Whose refterdays look backwards with a smile; Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly; 335 That common, but opprobious lot! paft hours, If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight, If folly bounds our prospect by the grave, All feeling of futurity benumb'd; All god-like passion for eternals quencht; 340 All relith of realties expir'd; Renounc'd all correspondence with the skies ; Our freedom chain'd ; quite wingless our desire ; In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar; 345 350 To reach the distant skies, and triumph there On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters chang’d; Though we from Earth ; Ethereal, they that fell. Such veneration due, Oman, to man. Who venerate themselves, the world despise. 355 For what, gay friend ! is this escutcheon'd world, Which hangs out Death in one eternal night; A night, that glooms us in the noon-tide ray, And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud ? Life's little stage is a small eminence, 360 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! 365 Is death at distance? No: He has been on thee, And given sure earnest of his final blow. Those hours that lately smild, where are they now? Pallid to thought, and ghastly! drown'd, all drown'd In that great deep, which nothing disembogues ! 370 And, dying, they bequeath'd thee small renown. The rest are on the wing: how fleet their fight ! Already has the fatal train took fire; A mo 380 A moment, and the world 's blown up to thee; 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours; And ask them, what report they bore to heaven; And how they might have borne more welcome news. Their answers form what men Experience call; If Wisdom's friend, her best; if not, worst 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 success are tutor’d to despair." Nor is it only thus, but must be fo. 385 Who knows not this, though grey, is still a child. Loose then from earth the grasp of fond desire, Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore. Art thou so moor'd thou canst not disengage, Nor give thy thoughts a ply to future scenes ? 390 Since by Life's pafing breath, blown up from earth, Light as the summer's duít, we take in air A moment's giddy flight, and fall again; Join the dull mass, increase the trodden soil, And seep, till earth herself shall be no more; 395 Since then (as emmets, their small world o’erthrown) We, sore amaz'd, from out earth's ruins crawl, And rise to fate extreme of foul or fair, As man's own choice (controuler of the skies!) As man's despotic will, perhaps one hour, 500 (O how omnipotent is time !) decrees; Should not each warning give a (trong alarm? Warning, far less than that of befom torn From From bosom, bleeding o'er the sacred dead ! 405 410 “O man, thy kingdom is departing from thee; “ And, while it lasts, is emptier than my fade." Its filent language such: nor need'lt thou call Thy Magi, to decypher what it means. Know, like the Median, fate is in thy walls : 415 Doft ask, How? Whence? Belshazzar-like, amaz'd ?" Man's make incloses the sure seeds of death; Life feeds the murderer; Ingrate! he thrives On her own meal, and then his nurse devours. But here, Lorenzo, the delusion lies; 4.20 That folar sadow, as it measures life, It life resembles too: life speeds away From point to point, though seeming to stand still. The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth: Too subtle is the movement to be seen; 425 Yet foon man's hour is up, and we are gone. 430 D Tis 440 'Tis later with the wise than he's aware: A Wilmington goes flower than the fun: 435 And all mankind mistake their time of day; Ev'n age itself. Fresh hopes are hourly sown that he cannot feel, 445 The disappointment of a promis's hour. On This, or fimilar, Philander! thou 450 455. Clean runs the thread ; if not, 'tis thrown away, Or kept to tie up nonfense for a song; Song, fashionably fruitless; such as ftains 'The Fancy, and unhallow'd Paffion fires; Chiming her faints to Cytherea's fane. 460 Know'st thou, Lorenzo! what a friend contains ? As bees mixt Nectar draw from fragrant flowers, So men from friendship, Wisdom and Delight; |