Live ever here, Lorenzo!-fhocking thought! So fhocking, they who wish, difown it too; Difown from fhame what they from folly crave. Live ever in the womb, nor fee the light? For what live ever here?-With labouring step To tread our former footsteps? Pace the round Eternal? To climb life's worn, heavy wheel, Which draws up nothing new? To beat, and beat The beaten track? To bid each wretched day The former mock? To furfeit on the fame,
For change though fad? To fee what we have seen ?
Hear, till unheard, the fame old flabber'd tale? 3,6
To tafte the tafted, and at each return
Lefs tafteful? O'er our palates to decant
Another vintage? Strain a fatter year,
Through loaded veffels, and a laxer tone?
Crazy machines to grind earth's wafted fruits!
Ill-ground, and worse concocted! load, not life!
The rational foul kennels of excefs!
Still-ftreaming thorough-fares of dull debauch!
Trembling each gulp, left death fhould fnatch the bowl.
Such of our fine ones is the with refin'd!
So would they have it : elegant defire !
Why not invite the bellowing stalls, and wilds ?
But fuch examples might their riot awe.
Through want of virtue, that is, want of thought,
(Though on bright thought they father all their flights)
To what are they reduc'd? To love, and hate,
The fame vain world; to cenfure, and efpoufe,
This painted fhrew of life, who calls them fool 355.
Each moment of each day; to flatter bad
Through dread of worfe? to cling to this rude rock,
Barren to them of good, and sharp with ills,
And hourly blacken'd with impending storms,
And infamous for wrecks of human hope-
Scar'd at the gloomy gulf, that yawns beneath.
Such are their triumphs! fuch their pangs of joy!
'Tis time, high time, to shift this difmal fcene.
This hugg'd, this hideous ftate, what art can cure?
One only; but that one what all may reach;
Virtue-fhe, wonder-working goddess ! charms
That rock to bloom; and tames the painted fhrew ;
And, what will more furprife, Lorenzo! gives
To life's fick, naufeous iteration, change;
And ftraightens Nature's circle to a line.
Believ't thou this, Lorenzo? lend an ear,
A patient ear; thou'lt blush to disbelieve.
A languid, leaden, iteration reigns,
And ever muft, o'er those whose joys are joys
Of fight, fmell, tafte: the cuckoo-seasons fing
The fame dull note to fuch as nothing prize,
But what thofe feafons, from the teeming earth,
To doating fenfe indulge. But nobler minds,
Which relish fruits unripen'd by the fun,
Make their days various; various as the dyes
On the dove's neck, which wanton in his rays,
On minds of dove-like innocence poffefs'd,
On lighten'd minds, that bask in virtue's beams,
Nothing hangs tedious, nothing old revolves
In that for which they long; for which they live. 385
Their glorious efforts, wing'd with heavenly hope,
Each rifing morning fees ftill higher rife;
Each bounteous dawn its novelty prefents
To worth maturing, new ftrength, luftre, fame;
While Nature's circle, like a chariot-wheel
Rolling beneath their elevated aims,
Makes their fair profpect fairer every hour;
Advancing virtue in a line to blifs;
Virtue, which christian motives best inspire!
And blifs, which chriftain fchemes alone endure! 395 And fhall we then, for Virtue's fake, commence
Apoftates; and turn infidels for joy?
A truth it is, few doubt, but fewer trust,
"He fins againft this life, who flights the next." What is this life? How few their favourite know?
Fond in the dark, and blind in our embrace,
By paffionately loving life, we make
Lov'd life unlovely; hugging her to death.
We give to time eternity's regard ;
And, dreaming, take our paffage for our port.
Life has no value as an end, but means;
An end deplorable! a means divine!
When 'tis our all, 'tis nothing; worse than nought;
A neft of pains: when held as nothing, much:
Like fome fair humourifts, life is most enjoy'd
When courted leaft; most worth, when difesteem'd:
Then 'tis the feat of comfort, rich in peace;
In profpect richer far; important! awful!
Not to be mention'd but with fhouts of praife!
Not to be thought on, but with tides of joy!
The mighty bafis of eternal blifs!
Where now the barren rock ? the painted fhrew?
Where now, Lorenzo! life's eternal round?
Have I not made my triple promise good?
Vain is the world; but only to be vain.
To what compare we then this varying scene,
Whofe worth ambiguous rifes, and declines?
Waxes, and wanes ? (In all propitious, night
Affifts me here) compare it to the moon;
Dark in herself, and indigent; but rich
In borrow'd luftre from a higher sphere.
When gross guilt interposes, labouring earth,
O'erfhadow'd, mourns a deep eclipfe of joy;
Her joys, at brightest, pallid, to that font
Of full effulgent glory whence they flow.
Nor is that glory diftant. Oh Lorenzo!
A good man, and an angel! these between
How thin the barrier! what divides their fate?
Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year;
Or, if an age, it is a moment ftill;
A moment, or eternity's forgot.
Then be, what once they were, who now are gods;
Be what Philander was, and claim the fkies.
Starts timid Nature at the gloomy pafs?
The foft tranfition call it, and be cheer'd:
Such it is often, and why not to thee?
To hope the beft, is pious, brave, and wife;
And may itself procure, what it prefumes.
Life is much flatter'd, death is much tradue'd ;
Compare the rivals, and the kinder crown. "Strange competition!"-True, Lorenzo, strange; So little life can caft into the fcale.
Life makes the foul dependent on the dust ;
Death gives her wings to mount above the fpheres.
Through chinks, ftyl'd organs, dim life peeps at lights
Death bursts th' involving cloud, and all is day;
All eye, all ear, the difembody'd pow'r,
Death has feign'd evils, nature fhall not feel;
Life, ills fubftantial, wifdom cannot fhun.
Is not the mighty mind, that fon of heaven!
By tyrant life dethron'd, imprifon'd, pain'd?
By death enlarg'd, ennobled, deify'd?
Death but entombs the body; Life the foul.
"Is Death then guiltless? How he marks his way "With dreadful wafte of what deferves to fhine! 460 "Art, genius, fortune, elevated pow'r! "With various luftres thefe light up the world, "Which Death puts out, and darkens human race."
I grant, Lorenzo! this indictment just :
The fage, peer, potentate, king, conqueror !
Death humbles thefe; more barbarous life than man.
Life is the triumph of our mouldering clay;
Death of the spirit infinite! divine!
Death has no dread but what frail life imparts;
Nor life true joy, but what kind Death improves. 470
No blifs has life to boaft, till death can give
Far greater; life's a debtor to the grave,
Dark lattice! letting in eternal day.
Lorenzo! blush at fondness for a life
Which fends celeftial fouls on errand vile,
To cater for the fenfe; and ferve at boards,
Where every ranger of the wilds, perhaps
Each reptile, juftly claims our upper hand.
Luxurious feaft! a foul, a foul immortal,
In all the dainties of a brute bemir'd!
Lorenzo! blush at terror for a death,
Which gives thee to repose in feftive bowers,
Where nectars fparkle, angels minifter,
And more than angels share, and raife, and crown,
And eternife, the birth, bloom, bursts of blifs.
What need I more? O Death! the palm is thine.
Then welcome, Death, thy dreaded harbingers,
Age and Disease; Difeafe, tho' long my gueft,
That plucks my nerves, those tender ftrings of life,
Which, pluck'd a little more, will toll the bell
That calls my few friends to my funeral;
Where feeble Nature drops, perhaps, a tear,
While Reason and Religion, better taught,
Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory;
It binds in chains the raging ills of life:
Luft and Ambition, Wrath and Avarice,
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power.
That ills corrofive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O Death! is thine.
Our day of diffolution!-name it right,
'Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich
And ripe. What tho' the fickle, fometimes keen,
Juft fcars us as we reap the golden grain?
More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound. 505
Birth's feeble cry, and Death's deep difmal groan,
Are flender tributes low-tax'd Nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each a life.
But, O! the laft the former fo transcends,
Life dies compar'd; Life lives beyond the grave. 510
And feel I, Death, no joy from thought of thee?
Death, the great counsellor, who man infpires
With ev'ry nobler thought and fairer deed !
Death, the deliverer, who refcues man!
Death, the rewarder, who the refcu'd crowns!
Death, that absolves my birth, a curse without it!
Rich Death, that realizes all my cares,
Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera!
Death, of all pain the period, not of joy :
Joy's fource and subject still subsist unhurt;
One in my foul, and one in her great fire;
Tho' the four winds were warring for my duft.
Yes, and from winds and waves, and central night, Tho' prifon'd there, my duft, too, I reclaim.
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