Affects not this the fages of the world?
Can nought affect them, but what fools them too?
Eternity depending on an hour,

1364

1370

your own.

1360 Makes ferious thought man's wisdom, joy, and praise. Nor need you blufh (tho' fometimes your defigns May fhun the light) at your designs on heav'n; Sole point! where overbafhful is your blame. Are you not wife?—you know you are; yet hear One truth, amid your num'rous fchemes miflaid, Or overlook'd, or thrown afide, if feen; "Our schemes to plan by this world or the next, "Is the fole diff'rence between wife and fool." All worthy men will weigh you in this scale; What wonder, then, if they pronounce you light? Is their eftcem, alone not worth your care? Accept my fimple fcheme of common fenfe, Thus fave your fame, and make two worlds The world replies not; but the world perfifts, 1375 And puts the cause off to the longest day, Planning evafions for the day of doom: So far, at that re-hearing, from redrefs, They then turn witneffes against themselves. Hear that, Lorenzo! nor be wife to-morrow. Hafte, hafte! a man, by nature, is in haste; For who fhall anfwer for another hour? 'Tis highly prudent to make one fure friend, And that thou canst not do this fide the skies. Ye fons of earth! (nor willing to be more!) Since verfe you think from prieftcraft fomewhat free, Thus, in an age fo gay, the mufe plain truths (Truths which, at church, you might have heard in Has ventur'd into light, well-pleas'd the verfe [profe.) Should be forgot, if you the truths retain, And crown her with your welfare, not your praise. But praise fhe need not fear: I fee my fate, And headlong leap, like Curtius, down the gulph. Since many an ample volume, mighty tome, Muft die, and die unwept; O thou minute, Devoted page! go forth among thy foes; Go, nobly proud of martyrdom for truth,

1380

1385

1390

1395

And die a double death: mankind, incens'd,
Denies thee long to live; nor fhalt thou rest

When thou art dead, in Stygian fhades arraign'd 1400
By Lucifer, as traitor to his throne,

And bold blafphemer of his friend,—the world;
The world, whofe legions coft him flender pay,
And volunteers around his banner fwarm,
Prudent as Pruffia in her zeal for Gaul.

1405

"Are all then fools?" Lorenzo cries -Yes, all But fuch as hold this doftrine, (new to thee) "The mother of true wifdom is the will," The nobleft intellect a fool without it.

World-wifdom much has done, and more may do,
In arts and fciences, in wars and peace;

1411

But art and science, like thy wealth, will leave thee,
And make thee twice a beggar at thy death.
This is the most indulgence can afford,—

"Thy wisdom all can do, but-make thee wife."
Nor think this cenfure is fevere on thee;
Satan thy master, I dare call a dunce.

THE CONSOLATION.

NIGHT IX. AND LAST.

Containing, among other things,

1417

I. A MORAL SURVEY OF THE NOCTURNAL HEAVENS. II. A NIGHT ADDRESS TO THE DEITY,

A

Humbly infcribed to.

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE,

One of His Majefty's principal Secretaries of State.

----Fatis contraria fata rependens.

S when a traveller, a long day past

Virg.

In painful fearch of what he cannot find,

At night's approach, content with the next cot,
There ruminates awhile his labour loft,

Then cheers his heart with what his fate affords,
And chants his fonnet to deceive the time,
Till the due feafon calls him to repose:
Thus I, long-travell'd in the ways of men,
And dancing, with the reft, the giddy maze,
Where Difappointment fmiles at Hope's career,
S

5

10

15

Warn'd by the languor of life's ev'ning ray,
At length have hous'd me in an humble shed,
Where, future wand'ring banish'd from my thought,
And waiting, patient, the fweet hour of reít,,
I chafe the moments with a serious fong.
Song fooths our pains, and age has pains to footh.
When age, care, crime, and friends, embrac'd at heart,
Torn from my bleeding breast, and death's dark shade,
Which hovers o'er me, quench th' ethereal fire,
Cant thou, O Night! indulge one labour more? 20
One labour more indulge! then fleep, my strain!
Till, haply, wak'd by Raphael's golden lyre,
Where night, death, age, care, crime, and forrow ceafe,
To bear a part in everlasting lays;

Tho' far, far higher fet in aim, I trust,
Symphonius to this humble prelude here.

Has not the mufe affected pleafures pure,

Like thofe above, exploding other joys?

Weigh what was urg'd, Lorenzo! fairly weigh,
And tell me, haft thou cause to triumph ftill?

I think thou wilt forbear a boast fo bold:

25

30

But if, beneath the favour of mistake,

Thy fmiles fincere, not more fincere can be

Lorenzo's fmile, than my compaffion for him.
The fick in body call for aid; the fick

35

In mind are covetous of more disease,

40

And when at worst, they dream themselves quite well.
To know ourselves difeas'd is half our cure.
When Nature's blush by custom is wip'd off,
And confcience deaden'd by repeated strokes,
Has into manners naturaliz'd our crimes,
The curfe of curfes is our curfe to love,
To triumph in the blackness of our guilt,
(As Indians glory in the deepest jet)

And throw afide our fenfes with our peace.

45

But grant no guilt, no fhame, no least alloy;

Grant joy, and glory quite unfully'd shone;

Yet ftill it ill deferves Lorenzo's heart.
No joy, no glory, glitters in thy fight,
But, thro' the thin partition of an hour,

50

I fee its fables wove by destiny,

And that in forrow bury'd, this in fhame,
While howling furies ring the doleful knell,

And Confcience, now fo foft thou fcarce canft hear Her whifper, echoes her eternal peal.

55

Where the prime actors of the last year's scene,
Their port fo proud, their buskin, and their plume?
How many fleep, who kept the world awake
With luftre and with noife! Has death proclaim'd
A truce, and hung his fated lance on high?
'Tis brandifh'd still, nor fhall the present year
Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or fpread, of feeble life, a thinner fall.

But needlefs monuments to wake the thought;
Life's gayest scenes fpeak man's mortality,
Tho' in a style more florid, full as plain
As maufoleums, pyramids, and tombs.
What are our noblett ornaments, but Death's
Turn'd flatterers of life in paint or marble,
The well-ftain'd canvass, or the featur'd stone?
Our father's grace, or rather haunt, the scene.
Joy peoples her pavillion from the dead.

"Profefs'd diverfions! cannot thefe efcape?"-
Far from it: these prefent us with a shroud,
And talk of death like garlands o'er a grave.
As fome bold plunderers for bury'd wealth,
We ranfack tombs for paftime; from the dust
Call up the fleeping hero; bid him tread
The fcene for our amufement. How like gods
We fit, and, wrapt in immortality,

60

65

70

75

80

Shed gen'rous tears on wretches born to die,
Their fate deploring to forget our own!

What all the pomps and triumphs of our lives

'But legacies in bloffom? Our lean foil,
Luxuriant grown, and rank in vanities,
From friends interr'd beneath a rich manure!
Like other worms we banquet on the dead;
Like other worms, fhall we crawl on, nor know
Our present frailties or approaching fate?

85

Lorenzo! fuch the glories of the world!
What is the world itfelf? Thy world—a grave.
Where is the duft that has not been alive?
The ipade, the plough, difturb our ancestors.
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around earth's hollow furface shakes,
And is the cieling of her sleeping fons.
O'er devaftation we blind revels keep:
Whole bury'd towns fupport the dancer's heel.
The moift of human frame the fun exhales :
Winds fcatter thro' the mighty void the dry:
Earth repoffeffes part of what the gave,
And the freed fpirit mounts on wings of fire:
Each element partakes our scatter'd spoils;
As nature wide our ruins fpread. Man's death
Inhabits all things but the thought of man.

Nor man alone; his breathing bust expires;
His tomb is mortal: empires die: where now
The Roman? Greck? they stalk, an empty name!
Yet few regard them in this ufeful light,
Tho' half our learning is their epitaph.

90

95

100

105

110

When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought,
That loves to wander in thy funless realms,

O Death! I ftretch my view, what vifions rife !
What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine!
In wither'd laurels glide before my fight!
What lengths of far-fam'd ages billow'd high
With human agitation, roll along

In unfubftantial images of air!

The melancholy ghosts of dead Renown,

115

Whip'ring faint echoes of the world's applaufe, 120 With penitential afpect, as they pass,

All point at earth, and hifs at human pride,

The wildom of the wife, and prancings of the great. But, O Lorenzo! far the rest above,

Of ghaftly nature, and enormous fize.

One form affaults my fight, and chills my blood,
And thakes my frame. Of one departed world
I fee the mighty fhadow: oozy wreath

And difinal fea-weed crown her: o'er her urn

125