But these are barren of that birth divine:

They weep impetuous, as the summer storm,
And full as short! The cruel grief soon tam'd,
They make a pastime of the stingless tale;
Far as the deep resounding knell, they spread
The dreadful news, and hardly feel it more.
No grain of wisdom pays them for their woe.
Half-round the globe, the tears pumpt up by death
Are spent in watʼring vanities of life;

In making folly flourish still more fair.

When the sick soul, her wonted stay withdrawn,
Reclines on earth, and sorrows in the dust;
Instead of learning, there, her true support,
Tho' there thrown down her true support to learn,
Without heav'n's aid, impatient to be blest,
She crawls to the next shrub, or bramble vile,
Tho' from the stately cedar's arms she fell;
With stale, forsworn embraces, clings anew,
The stranger weds, and blossoms, as before,
In all the fruitless fopperies of life:

Presents her weed, well-fancy'd, at the ball,
And raffles for the death's-head on the ring.
So wept AURELIA, till the destin'd youth
Stept in, with his receipt for making smiles,
And blanching sables into bridal bloom.
So wept LORENZO fair CLARISSA's fate;
Who gave that angel boy, on whom he doats;
And dy'd to give him, orphan'd in his birth!
Not such, NARCISSA, my distress for Thee.
I'll make an altar of thy sacred tomb,

To sacrifice to wisdom.-What wast thou?

"Young, gay, and fortunate!" Each yields a theme. I'll dwell on each, to shun thought most severe; (Heaven knows I labour with severer still.!) I'll dwell on each, and quite exhaust thy death. A soul without reflection, like a pile

Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.

And, first, thy youth. What says it to grey hairs! NARCISSA, I'm become thy pupil now

Early, bright, transient, chaste, as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhal'd, and went to heav'n.
Time on this head has snow'd; yet still 'tis borne
Aloft; nor thinks but on another's grave..
Cover'd with shame I speak it, age severe
Old worn-out vice sets down for virtue fair;
With graceless gravity, chastising youth,
That youth chastis'd surpassing in a fault,
Father of all, forgetfulness of death:
As if, like objects pressing on the sight,
Death had advanc'd too near us to be seen:
Or, that life's loan time ripen'd into right;
And men might plead prescription from the grave;
Deathless, from repetition of reprieve.

Deathless? far from it! such are dead already;
Their hearts are bury'd, and the world their grave.
Tell me, some god! my guardian angel! tell,
What thus infatuates? what inchantment plants
The phantom of an age 'twixt us, and death
Already at the door? He knocks, we hear,
And yet we will not hear. What mail defends

Our untouch'd hearts? What miracle turns off

The pointed thought, which from a thousand quivers
Is daily darted, and is daily shunn'd ?

We stand, as in a battle, throngs on throngs
Around us falling; wounded oft ourselves;
Tho' bleeding with our wounds, immortal still!
We see time's furrows on another's brow,
And death intrench'd, preparing his assault;
How few themselves, in that just mirror, see!
Or, seeing, draw their inference as strong!
There death is certain; doubtful here: He must,

And soon; We may, within an age, expire.

Tho' grey our heads, our thoughts and aims are green;
Like damag'd clocks, whose hand and bell dissent;
Folly sings Six, while nature points at Twelve.
Absurd longevity! More, More, it cries:
More life, more wealth, more trash of ev'ry kind.
And wherefore mad for more, when relish fails?
Object, and appetite, must club for joy;

Shall folly labour hard to mend the bow,
Baubles, I mean, that strikes us from without,
While nature is relaxing ev'ry string?

Ask thought for joy; grow rich, and hoard within.
Think you the soul, when this life's rattles cease,
Has nothing of more manly to succeed?
Contract the taste immortal; learn ev'n Now
To relish what alone subsists hereafter.
Divine, or none, henceforth your joys for ever.
Of
age the glory is, to wish to die.

That wish is praise, and promise; it applauds

Past life, and promises our future bliss.

What weakness see not children in their sires?
Grand-climacterical absurdities!

Grey-hair'd authority, to faults of youth,
How shocking: It makes folly thrice a fool;
And our first childhood might our last despise.
Peace and esteem is all that age can hope.
Nothing but wisdom gives the first; the last,
Nothing, but the repute of being wise.
Folly bars both; our age is quite undone.

What folly can be ranker? Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen, as our sun declines.
No wish should loiter, then, this side the grave.
Our hearts should leave the world, before the knell
Calls for our carcases to mend the soil.

Enough to live in tempest, die in port;
Age should fly concourse, cover in retreat
Defects of judgment; and the will's subdue;
Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore
Of that vast ocean it must sail so soon;
And put good-works on board; and wait the wind
That shortly blows us into worlds unknown:
If unconsider'd too, a dreadful scene!

All should be prophets to themselves; foresee
Their future fate; their future fate foretaste;
This art would waste the bitterness of death.
The thought of death alone, the fear destroys.
A disaffection to that precious thought
Is more than midnight darkness on the soul,

Which sleeps beneath it, on a precipice,

Puff'd off by the first blast, and lost for ever.
Dost ask, LORENZO, why so warmly prest,
By repetition hammer'd on thine ear,

The thought of death? That thought is the machine,
The grand machine! that heaves us from the dust,
And rears us into men. That thought, ply'd home,
Will soon reduce the ghastly precipice
O'er-hanging hell, will soften the descent,
And gently flope our passage to the grave;
How warmly to be wisht! What heart of flesh
Would trifle with tremendous? dare extremes?
Yawn o'er the fate of infinite? What hand,
Beyond the blackest brand of censure bold,
(To speak a language too well known to Thee)
Would at a moment give its All to chance,
And stamp the die for an eternity?

Aid me, NARCISSA! aid me to keep pace
With destiny; and ere her scissars cut
My thread of life, to break this tougher thread
Of moral death, that ties me to the world.
Sting thou my slumb'ring reason to send forth
A thought of observation on the foe;
To sally; and survey the rapid march
Of his ten thousand messengers to man;
Who, JEHU-like, behind him turns them all.
All accident apart, by nature sign'd,
My warrant is gone out, tho' dormant yet;
Perhaps behind one moment lurks my fate,