Is their esteem alone not worth your care?
Accept my simple scheme of common sense:
Thus, save your fame, and make two worlds your own.
The world replies not;-but the world persists,
And puts the cause off to the longest day,
Planning evasions for the day of doom.
So far, at that re-hearing, from redress,
They then turn witnesses against themselves.
Hear that, Lorenzo! nor be wise to-morrow.
Haste, haste! a man, by nature, is in haste:
For who shall answer for another hour?
'Tis highly prudent to make one sure friend;
And that thou canst not do, this side the skies.
Ye sons of earth! (nor willing to be more!)
Since verse you think from priestcraft somewhat free,
Thus, in an age so gay, the muse plain truths [prose)
(Truths, which at church you might have heard in
Has ventured into light; well-pleased the verse
Should be forgot, if you the truths retain;
And crown her with your welfare, not your praise.
But praise she need not fear; I see my fate;
And headlong leap, like Curtius, down the gulf.
Since many an ample volume, mighty tome,
Must die; and die unwept. O thou minute,
Devoted page! go forth among thy foes;
Go, nobly proud of martyrdom for truth,
And die a double death. Mankind incensed,
Denies thee long to live: nor shalt thou rest,
When thou art dead: in Stygian shades arraign'd
By Lucifer, as traitor to his throne;
And bold blasphemer of his friend,—the world;
The world, whose legions cost him slender pay,
And volunteers around his banner swarm;
Prudent, as Prussia, in her zeal for Gaul.
Are all, then, fools?' Lorenzo cries.-Yes, all, But such as hold this doctrine (new to thee;) The mother of true wisdom is the will;' The noblest intellect, a fool without it. World-wisdom much has done, and more may do, In arts and sciences, in wars and peace;
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 wise. Nor think this censure is severe on thee;
Satan, thy master, I dare call a dunce.
Containing, among other things,
1.-A MORAL SURVEY OF THE NOCTURNAL HEAVENS.
2.-A NIGHT ADDRESS TO THE DEITY.
INSCRIBED TO HIS GRACE, THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. One of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State.
-Fatis contraria fata rependens.-Virg.
As when a traveller, a long day past
In painful search of what he cannot find,
At night's approach, content with the next cot,
There ruminates awhile, his labour lost;
Then cheers his heart with what his fate affords
And chants his sonnet to deceive the time,
Till the due season calls him to repose:
Thus I, long-travelled in the ways of men,
And dancing, with the rest the giddy maze,
Where dissapointment smiles at hope's career;
Warn'd by the languor of life's evening ray,
At length have housed me in an humble shed.
Where, future wand'ring banish'd from my thought,
And waiting, patient, the sweet hour of rest;
I chase the moments with a sérious song.
Song sooths our pains; and age has pains to sooth.
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,
Canst thou, O night! indulge one labour more?
One labour more indulge! then sleep, my strain!
Till, haply, waked by Raphael's golden lyre,
Where night, death, age, care, crime, and sorrow cease;
To bear a part in everlasting lays;
Though far, far higher set, in aim, I trust,
Symphonious to this humble prelude here.
Has not the muse asserted pleasure pure,
Like those above, exploding other joys?
Weigh what was urged, Lorenzo, fairly weigh;
And tell me, hast thou cause to triumph still?
I think thou wilt forbear a boast so bold.
But if, beneath the favour of mistake,
Thy smile's sincere, not more sincere can be
Lorenzo's smile, than my compassion for him.
The sick in body call for aid: the sick
In mind are covetous of more disease;
And when at worst, they dream themselves quite well.
To know ourselves diseased, is half our cure.
When nature's blush by custom is wiped off,
And conscience, deaden'd by repeated strokes,
Has into manners naturalized our crimes,
The curse of curses is, our curse to love;
To triumph in the blackness of our guilt
(As Indians glory in the deepest jet,)
And throw aside our senses with our peace.
But, grant no guilt, no shame, no least alloy;
Grant joy and glory, quite unsullied, shone;
Yet still, it ill deserves Lorenzo's heart.
No joy, no glory, glitters in thy sight,
But, through the thin partition of an hour,
I see its sables wove by destiny;
And that in sorrow buried; this in shame;
While howling furies ring the doleful knell:
And conscience, now so soft thou scarce canst hear
Her whisper, echoes her eternal peal.
Where the prime actors of the last year's scene; Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume? How many sleep, who kept the world awake With lustre and with noise! Has death proclaim'd A truce, and hung his sated lance on high? "Tis brandish'd still, nor shall the present year Be more tenacious of her human leaf, Or spread of feeble life a thinner fall.
But needless monuments to wake the thought;
Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality;
Though in a style more florid, full as plain,
As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs.
What are our noblest ornaments, but deaths
Turn'd flatterers of life, in paint, or marble,
The well-stain'd canvass, or the featured stone?
Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene.
Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.
Profest diversions! cannot these escape?'-
Far from it: these present us with a shroud;
And talk of death, like garlands o'er a grave.
As some bold plunderers for buried wealth,
We ransack tombs for pastime; from the dust
Call up the sleeping hero; bid him tread
The scene for our amusement: how like gods
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