Know, Smiler! at thy peril art thou pleas'd;
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor severe,
But rises in demand for her delay;
She makes a scourge of past prosperity,
To sting thee more, and double thy distress.
Lorenzo, Fortune makes her court to thee:
Thy fond heart dances while the Syren sings.
Dear is thy welfare; think me not unkind;
I would not damp, but to secure thy joys.
Think not that fear is sacred to the storm,
Stand on thy guard against the smiles of Fate.
Is Heav'n tremendous in its frown? most sure;
And in its favours formidable too:
Its favours here are trials, not rewards;
A call to duty, not discharge from care;
And should alarm us full as much as woes;
Awake us to their cause and consequence,
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our desert;
Awe nature's tumult, and chastise her joys,
Lest while we clasp, we kill them; nay, invert
To worse than simple misery their charms.
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bosom friendships to resentment sour'd,
With rage envenom'd rise against our peace.
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys but joys that never can expire.
Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death.
Mine dy'd with thee, Philander! thy last sigh
Dissolv'd the charms; the disenchanted earth
Lost all her lustre. Where her glitt'ring tow'rs?
Her golden mountains where? all darken'd down
To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears:
The great magician's dead! Thou poor pale piece
Of outcast earth, in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! Thy darling hope so near,
(Long laboured prize!) O how ambition flush'd
Thy glowing cheek? ambition, truly great,
Of virtuous praise. Death's subtle seed within,
(Sly, treach'rous miner!) working in the dark,
Smil'd at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon'
The worm to riot on that rose so red,
Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!
Man's foresight is conditionally wise;
Lorenzo! wisdom into folly turns
Oft the first instant its idea fair
To labouring thought is born. How dim our eye! The present moment terminates our sight;
Clouds, thick as those on Doomsday, drown the next;
We penetrate, we prophesy in vain.
Time is dealt out by particles, and each
Ere mingled with the streaming sands of life,
By Fate's inviolable oath is sworn
Deep silence, "Where eternity begins."
By Nature's law, what may be, may be now;
There's no prerogative in human hours,
In human hearts what bolder thought can rise
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is sure to none; and yet on this Perhaps,
This Peradventure, infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant we build
Our mountain-hopes, spin out eternal schemes,
As we the Fatal sisters could out-spin,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.
Not ev'n Philander had bespoke his shroud,
Nor had he cause; a warning was deny'd:
How many fall as sudden, not as safe;
As sudden, the' for years admonish'd home!
Of human ills the last extreme beware;
Beware, Lorenzo! a slow sudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate surprise!
Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time
;-
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange 2.
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel, and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least their own; their future selves applauds ;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodg'd in their own hands is Folly's vails;
That lodg'd in Fate's, to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose they postpone;
'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that thro' ev'ry stage: When young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise,
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves and re-resolves; then dies the same.
And why? because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal but themselves:
Themselves, when some alarming shock of Fate
Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where past the shaft no trace is found,
As from the wing no scar the sky retains,
The parted wave no furrow from the keel,
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
E'en with the tender tear, which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
Can I forget Philander? that were strange !
O my full heart!-But should I give it vent,
The longest night, tho' longer far, would fail,
And the lark listen to my midnight song.
The sprightly lark's shrill matin wakes the morn ;
Grief's sharpest thorn hard pressing on my breast,
I strive, with wakeful melody, to cheer
The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel! like thee,
And call the stars to listen: ev'ry star
Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay.
Yet be not vain; there are who thine excel,
And charm thro' distant ages. Wrapt in shade,
Pris'ner of darkness! to the silent hours
How often I repeat their rage divine,
To lull my griefs, and steal my heart from woe!
I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire.
Dark, tho' not blind, like thee, Mæonides!
Or, Milton, thee! Ah, could I reach your strain!
Or his who made Mæonides our own.
Man, too, he sung; immortal man I sing.
Oft bursts my song beyond the bounds of life;
What now but immortality can please?
O had he press'd his theme, pursu'd the track
Which opens out of darkness into day!
O had he mounted on his wing of fire,
Soar'd where I sink, and sung immortal man!
How had it blest mankind, and rescu'd me!
ON TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP.
To the Right Honourable the Earl of WILMINGTON.
WHENthe cock crew he wept,-smote by that eye
Which looks on me, on all; that pow'r who bids
This midnight sentinel, with clarion shrill,
(Emblem of that which shall awake the dead)
Rouse souls from slumber into thoughts of Heav'n.
Shall I too weep? where then is fortitude?
And fortitude abandon'd, where is man?
I know the terms on which he sees the light:
He that is born is listed; life is war;
Eternal war with woe: who bears it best
Deserves it least.-On other themes I'll dwell.
Lorenzo! let me turn my thoughts on thee;
And thine, on themes may profit; profit there
Where most thy need. Themes, too, the genuine growth
Of dear Philander's dust. He thus, tho' dead, [price,
May still befriend-What themes? Time's wondrous
Death, friendship, and Philander's final scene!
So could I touch these themes as might obtain
Thine ear, nor leave thy heart quite disengag'd,
The good deed would delight me; half impress
On my dark cloud an Iris, and from grief
Call glory.-Dost thou mourn Philander's fate;
I know thou say'st it: says thy life the same?
He mourns the dead, who lives as they desire.
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