THIS metaphor each rustic knows,—
Frail man is like the flower that blows
At morn: before the beam of day,
In air the dew-drop melts away,
The evanescent blossom fades ;
And, long before the mellow shades
Of even cover tower and tree,
And all the varied scenery
Like a pale shroud, it withering lies
Before the mower's scythe and dies.
Death is the mower; and who can
Deny his mastery o'er man?
Fond man! who eyes the coming hour
As if already in his power,
O'erlooking all that lies between
The foreground and the distant scene;
Or, drawing large from Fancy's store,
Bids fairy landscapes spread before
His raptured gaze, till he believe
All real, and himself deceive.
Too late, he finds the dazzling gleam
Reflects nor lake, nor glittering stream;
The mead, the forest, flowery glade,
The rocky dell the dark cascade,
The gelid fount, the mystic grot,
And all on that romantic spot
And rich imaginative scene
Vanished as though they ne'er had been.
Tom Dewlap thought time made for him,
So used it to indulge his whim;
And, equally, believing all
The good on this terrestrial ball
Created for his soul delight,
Lived but to please his appetite.
His sire, (Tom was an only son),
Had Fortune's choicest favours won;
A careful citizen, who knew
Man may with toil all things subdue;
That pence grow shillings, and these rise
To pounds in purses of the wise:
A man, who thought the world was made But as materials for trade.
He fell, as other mortals fall,
And Tom became the heir of all
His cash, his lands, his bonds, his stock,
Which greatly weakened the shock
To the heir's nerves; and the old man
Had measur'd out his mortal span.
As the pent torrent sleeps in rest,
Reflecting from its lucid breast,
Scarce rippled by the sighing breeze,
The sky, the clouds, rocks, banks, and trees;
But, in a moment, burst the mound,
It rolls in thunder o'er the ground;
In circling eddies boils afar,
Involving in the wat'ry war
Fields, gardens, cottages; till, wide
Spreading a lake from side to side,
It sinks, exhales, or scarcely fills
The scanty channels of some rills:
To wealth, like water, bursts the cords
That bind it in the miser's hoards ;
And, though beneath his Argus' eye,
The counted ingots safely lie,
Yet, spite of all his sleepless care,
They will be scatter'd by his heir.
Tom knew this fact, and thought it just
That wealth should circulate, and must:
The only truth, at Brazen-nose,
Which in his mem'ry would repose;
And, now, like philosophic wight,
He proved it practically right,
For this, he hired cooks, who knew
Not the old-fashioned roast and stew;
But how to concentrate a leg
Of beef in compass of an egg;
The essence from a ham express;
Display a turbot in full dress;
Make perigot and lobster-pie,
And tickle oysters till they cry,
With the excess of ecstasy,
"Come eat me! eat me! or I die."
Such were Tom's cooks; his table owned
Their excellence, and deeply groaned
With their productions, formed to make
The dullest appetite awake.
Philosophers may boast of mind;
Wits of the wreaths by Fancy twined;
Churchmen discourse of Paradise
Prospective for the good and wise;
Heroes of Fame, kings of their power,—
Enough for Tom that blissful hour,
When steaming viands graced the board
That owned him as its bounteous lord.
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