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In ruin end; and now their proud success
But plants new terrors on the victor's brow:
What pain to quit the world just made their own!
Their nest so deeply down'd, and built so high!
Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.

§225. The Love of Distinction.
AMBITION! pleasure! let us talk of these:
Dost grasp at greatness? first know what it is:
Think'st thou thy greatness in distinction lies?
Not in the feather, wave it e'er so high,
Is glory lodg'd: 'tis lodg'd in the reverse;
In that which joins, in that which equals all,
The monarch and his slave-"A deathless soul,
Unbounded prospect, and immortal kin,
A father God, and brothers in the skies!"

We wisely strip the steed we mean to buy:
Judge we, in their caparisons, of men?
It nought avails thee, where, but what thou art;
All the distinctions of this little life
Are quite cutaneous, foreign to the man:
When through death's streights earth's subtile
serpents creep,

Which wriggle into wealth, or climb renown,
They leave their party-color'd robe behind,
All that now glitters, while they rear aloft
Their brazen crests, and hiss at us below:
How mean that snuff of glory fortune lights,
And death puts out! dost thou demand a test;
A test at once infallible and short,

Of real greatness? that man greatly lives,
Whate'er his fate or fame, who greatly dies;
High flush'd with hope, where heroes shall
despair.

§ 226. Pleasure.

THOUGH SOMewhat disconcerted, steady still
To the world's cause, with half a face of joy,
Lorenzo cries, "Be, then, ambition cast;
Ambition's dearer far stands unimpeach'd,
Gay pleasure! proud ambition is her slave;
Who can resist her charms?"-Or, should?
Lorenzo!

What mortal shall resist, where angels yield?
Pleasure's the mistress of ethereal pow'rs;
Pleasure's the mistress of the world below;
How would all stagnate, but for pleasure's ray!
What is the pulse of this so busy world?
The love of pleasure: that, through ev'ry vein,
Throws motion, warmth; and shuts out death
from life.

Though various are the tempers of mankind,
Pleasure's gay family holds all in chains.
Some most affect the black; and some the fair;
Whate'er the motive, pleasure is the mark:
For her, the black assassin draws his sword;
For her, dark statesmen trim their midnight-
To which no single sacrifice may fall; [lamp,
The Stoic proud, for pleasure, pleasure scorn'd;
For her, affliction's daughters grief indulge,
And find, or hope, a luxury in tears:
For her, guilt, shame, toil, danger, we defy;
And, with an aim voluptuous, rush on death:
Thus universal her despotic power.

Patron of pleasure! I thy rival am; Pleasure, the purpose of my gloomy song: Pleasure is nought but virtue's gayer nameI wrong her still, I rate her worth too low: Virtue the root, and pleasure is the flow'r.

The love of pleasure is man's eldest-born, Born in his cradle, living to his tomb: Wisdom, her younger sister, though more grave, Was meant to minister, and not to mar Imperial pleasure, queen of human hearts.

§ 227. Rise of Pleasure.

FIRST, pleasure's birth, rise, strength, and grandeur see:

Brought forth by wisdom, nurs'd by discipline,
By patience taught, by perseverance crown'd,
She rears her head majestic; round her throne,
Erected in the bosom of the just,
Each virtue, listed, form her manly guard.
For what are virtues? (formidable name!)
What, but the fountain, or defence of joy?
Great legislator! scarce so great as kind!
If men are rational, and love delight,
Thy gracious law but flatters human choice:
In the transgression lies the penalty;
And they the most indulge, who most obey.

§ 228. The End of Pleasure.
Or pleasure, next, the final cause explore;
Its mighty purpose, its important end:
Not to turn human brutal, but to build
Divine on human, pleasure came from heav'n:
In aid to reason was the goddess sent,
To call up all its strength by such a charm.
Pleasure first succours virtue; in return,
Virtue gives pleasure an eternal reign.
What, but the pleasure of food, friendship, faith,
Supports life natural, civil, and divine?
It serves ourselves, our species, and our God.
Glide then for ever, pleasure's sacred stream!
Through Eden as Euphrates ran, it runs,
And fosters ev'ry growth of happy life;
Makes a new Eden where it flows.-

§ 229. Virtue and Piety. "Is virtue, then, and piety the same?" No-piety is more; 'tis virtue's source; Mother of ev'ry worth, as that of joy. With piety begins all good on earth. Conscience, her first law broken, wounded lies, Enfeebled, lifeless, impotent to good; A feign'd affection bounds her utmost power. Some we can't love, but for th' Almighty's sake; A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man. On piety, humanity is built; And, on humanity much happiness; And yet still more on piety itself. A Deity believ'd, is joy begun; A Deity ador'd, is joy advanc'd; A Deity belov'd, is joy matur'd. Each branch of piety delight inspires: Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next, O'er Death's dark gulph, and all its horror hides; Praise, the sweet exhalation of our joy,

That joy exalts, and makes it sweeter still;
Prayer ardent opens heaven, lets down a stream
Of glory, on the consecrated hour
Of man, in audience with the Deity.
Who worships the great God, that instant joins
The first in heav'n, and set his foot on hell.

§ 230. Resources of a dejected Mind.
ART thou dejected? is thy mind o'ercast?
Thy gloom to chase, go, fix some weighty
truth;
[good;
Chain down some passion; do some gen'rous
Teach ignorance to see, or grief to smile!
Correct thy friend; befriend thy greatest foe;
Or, with warm heart, and confidence divine,
Spring up, and lay strong hold on him who

made thee

Thy gloom is scatter'd, sprightly spirits flow,
Though wither'd is thy vine, and harp unstrung.
Dost call the bowl, the viol, and the dance,
Loud mirth, mad laughter? wretched comforters!
Physicians! more than half of thy disease.
Laughter, though never censur'd yet as sin,
Is half-immoral. Is it much indulg'd?
By venting spleen, or dissipating thought,
It shows a scorner, or it makes a fool;
And sins, as hurting others, or ourselves.
The house of laughter makes a house of woe:
What cause for triumph, where such iils abound?
What for dejection, where presides a pow'r,
Who call'd us into being to be bless'd?
So grieve, as conscious, grief may rise to joy;
So joy, as conscious, joy to grief may fall.
Most true; a wise man never will be sad;
But neither will sonorous, bubbling mirth
A shallow stream of happiness betray:
Too happy to be sportive, he's serene.

Retire, and read thy Bible, to be gay:
There truths abound of sov'reign aid to peace:
Ah! do not prize them less, because inspir'd;
If not inspir'd, that pregnant page had stood,
Time's treasure! and the wonder of the wise!
But these, thou think'st are gloomy paths to
joy.

True joy in sunshine ne'er was found at first:
They first, themselves offend, who greatly please;
And travel only gives us sound repose.
Heav'n sells all pleasure; effort is the price;
The joys of conquest are the joys of man;
And glory the victorious laurel spreads
O'er pleasure's pure, perpetual, placid stream.
§ 231. A Man of Pleasure is a Man of Pains.
THERE is a time, when toil must be preferr'd,
Or joy, by mistim'd fondness is undone.
A man of pleasure is a man of pains.
Thou wilt not take the trouble to be bless'd.
False joys, indeed, are born from want of thought;
From thought's full bent and energy, the true;
And that demands a mind in equal poise,
Remote from gloomy grief, and glaring joy.
Much joy not only speaks small happiness,
But happiness that shortly must expire:
Can joy, unbottom'd in reflection, stand?

8

And in a tempest can reflection live?
Can joy like thine secure itself an hour?
Can joy like thine meet accident unshock'd,
Or ope the door to honest poverty?
Or talk with threat'ning death, and not turn pale?
In such a world, and such a nature, these
Are needful fundamentals of delight:
These fundamentals give delight indeed;
Delight, pure, delicate, and durable;
Delight, unshaken, masculine, divine;
A constant, and a sound, but serious joy.
Is joy the daughter of severity?
It is; yet far my doctrine from severe :
"Rejoice for ever; it becomes a man;
Exalts, and sets him nearer to the gods;
Rejoice for ever," Nature cries, "Rejoice;"
And drinks to man, in her nectareous cup,
Mix'd up of delicates for ev'ry sense;
To the great Founder of the bounteous feast
Drinks glory, gratitude, eternal praise :
And he that will not pledge her, is a churl.
Ill firmly to support, good fully taste,
Is the whole science of felicity:

Yet sparing pledge; her bowl is not the best
Mankind can boast: A rational repast;
Exertion, vigilance, a mind in arms,
A military discipline of thought,
To foil temptation in the doubtful field;
An ever-waking ardor for the right,

"Tis these first give, then guard a cheerful heart.
Nought that is right, think little; well aware,
What reason bids, God bids: by his command,
How aggrandis'd the smallest thing we do!
Thus nothing is insipid to the wise;
To thee insipid all, but what is mad;
Joys season'd high, and tasting strong of guilt.
§ 232. Earthly Happiness.
CONSISTENT Wisdom ever wills the same;
Thy fickle wish is ever on the wing:
Sick of herself is folly's character;
As wisdom's is a modest self applause,
A change of evils is thy good supreme;
Nor, but in motion, canst thou find thy rest.
Man's greatest strength is shown in standing still:
The first sure symptom of a mind in health,
Is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home.
False pleasure from abroad her joys imports;
Rich from within, and self-sustain'd, the true :
The true is fix'd, and solid, as a rock;
Slipp'ry the false, and tossing, as the wave.
"Tis love o'erflowing makes an angel here:
Such angels all, entitled to repose [frowns,
On him who governs fate. Though tempest
Though nature shakes, how soft to lean on
heav'n!

To lean on Him on whom archangels lean!
With inward eyes, and silent as the grave,
They stand collecting ev'ry beam of thought,
Till their hearts kindle with divine delight;
For all their thoughts, like angels seen of old
In Israel's dreams, come from and go to heav'n:
Hence are they studious of sequester'd scenes,
While noise and dissipation comfort thee.

§ 233. Joy.

VAIN are all sudden sallies of delight;
Convulsions of a weak, distemper'd joy.
Joy's a fix'd state; a tenor, not a start;
Bliss there is none, but unprecarious bliss.
That is the gem; sell all, and purchase that.
Reason perpetuates joy that reason gives,
And makes it as immortal as herself:
To mortals, nought immortal, but their worth.

$234. Follies of Imagination.

In this is seen imagination's guilt: [thee,
But who can count her follies? She betrays
To think in grandeur there is something great.
For works of curious art, and ancient fame,
Thy genius hungers, elegantly pain'd;
And foreign climes must cater for thy taste.
Hence what disaster!-Though the price was
paid,

That persecuting priest, the Turk of Rome
Detain'd thy dinner on the Latian shore ;
And your magnificence is starv'd to death.
Hence, just resentment, indignation, ire !—

§ 235. Pleasure consists in Goodness.
PLEASURE, we both agree, is man's chief good;
Our only contest, what deserves the name.
Give pleasure's name to nought, but what has
pass'd

Th' authentic seal of reason, which defies
The tooth of time; when past, a pleasure still;
Dearer on trial, lovelier for its age,
And doubly to be priz'd, as it promotes
Our future, while it forms our present joy.
Some joys the future overcast; and some
Throw all their beams that way, and gild the

tomb:

Some joys endear eternity: some give
Abhorr'd annihilation dreadful charms.
Are rival joys contending for thy choice?
Consult thy whole existence, and be safe;
That oracle will put all doubt to flight:
Be good, and let heav'n answer for the rest.
Yet, with a sigh o'er all mankind, I grant,
In this our day of proof, our land of hope,
The good man has his clouds that intervene ;
Clouds that obscure his sublunary day,
But never conquer. Ev'n the best must own,
Patience and resignation are the pillars
Of human peace on earth: remote from thee,
Till this heroic lesson thou hast learn'd;
To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain,
Fir'd at the prospect of unclouded bliss.
Heav'n in reversion, like the sun as yet
Beneath th' horizon, cheers us in this world;
It sheds, on souls susceptible of light,
The glorious dawn of our eternal day.

His lustre more; though bright, without a soil.
Observe his awful portrait, and admire;
Nor stop at wonder; imitate and live.

§ 236. Picture of a Good Man.

WITH aspect mild, and elevated eye,
Behold him seated on a mount serene,
Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm;
All the black cares and tumults of this life,
Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet.
Earth's genuine sons, the sceptred and the slave,
A mingled mob! a wand'ring herd! he sees
Bewilder'd in the vale; in all unlike!
His full reverse in all; what higher praise?
What stronger demonstration of the right?

The present all their care; the future his:
When public welfare calls, or private want,
They give to fame; his bounty he conceals:
Their virtues varnish nature; his exalt:
Theirs, the wild chase of false felicities;
His, the compos'd possession of the true :
Alike throughout is his consistent peace,
All of one color, and an even thread;
While party-color'd shreds of happiness,
With hideous gaps between, patch up for them
A madman's robe; each puff of fortune blows
The tatters by, and shows their nakedness.

He sees with other eyes than theirs; where
they

Behold a sun, he spies a Deity;
What makes them only smile, makes him
[adore;

Where they see mountains, he but atoms sees;
An empire, in his balance, weighs a grain:
They things terrestrial worship, as divine;
His hopes immortal blow them by, as dust,
That dims his sight, and shortens his survey,
Which longs, in infinite, to lose all bound:
Titles and honors (if they prove his fate)
He lays aside to find his dignity:
They triumph in externals (which conceal
Man's real glory) proud of an eclipse;
He nothing thinks so great in man, as man;
Too dear he holds his interest, to neglect
Another's welfare, or his right invade;
Their int'rest, like a lion's, lives on prey;
They kindle at the shadow of a wrong;
Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on heav'n,
Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe;
Nought, but what wounds his virtue, wounds
his peace:

A cover'd heart their character defends;
A cover'd heart denies him half his praise:
With nakedness his innocence agrees;
While their broad foliage testifies their fall:
Their no-joys end, where his full feast begins;
His joys create, theirs murder, future bliss:
To triumph in existence, his alone;
And his alone, triumphantly to think
His true existence is not yet begun :
His glorious course was, sterday, complete;
shall | Death when was welcome, yet life still is sweet.

Now see the man immortal; him, I mean, Who lives as such; whose heart, full bent on heav'n,

Leans all that way his bias to the stars.
The world's dark shades, in contrast set,

[raise

§ 237. The Fall of the Good Man. BUT nothing charms, Lorenzo, like the firm Undaunted breast:-And whose is that high praise?

They yield to pleasure, though they danger brave,
And show no fortitude, but in the field;
If there they show it, 'tis for glory shown :
Nor will that cordial always man their hearts:
A cordial his sustains, that cannot fail:
By pleasure unsubdu'd, unbroke by pain,
He shares in that omnipotence he trusts:
All-bearing, all-attempting, till he falls,
And, when he falls, writes VICI on his shield;
From magnanimity, all fear above :
From nobler recompence, above applause.

§ 238. Wit and Wisdom.

WIT, how delicious to man's dainty taste!—
"Tis precious, as the vehicle of sense;
But, as its substitute, a dire disease:
Pernicious talent! flatter'd by mankind,
Yet hated too; they think the talent rare.
Wisdom is rare, Lorenzo! wit abounds;
Passion can give it; sometimes wine inspires
The lucky flash; and madness rarely fails.
Whatever cause the spirit strongly stirs,
Confers the bays, and rivals thy renown;
Chance often hits it; and, to pique thee more,
See dullness blund'ring on vivacities.
But wisdom, awful wisdom! which inspects,
Discerns, compares, weighs, separates, infers,
Seises the right, and holds it to the last!
How rare! In senates, synods, sought in vain ;
Or, if there found, 'tis sacred to the few.
While a loud prostitute to multitudes,
Frequent as fatal, wit. In civil life,
Wit makes an enterpriser; sense, a man:
Sense is our helmet, wit is but the plume;
The plume exposes, 'tis our helmet saves:
Sense is the diamond, weighty, solid, sound;
When cut by wit, it casts a brighter beam;
Yet, wit apart, it is a diamond still: [nought;
Wit, widow'd of good sense, is worse than
It hoists more sail to run against a rock.

How ruinous the rock I warn thee shun,
Where syrens sit, to sing thee to thy fate!
Let not the cooings of the world allure thee;
Which of her lovers ever found her true?
Happy! of this bad world who little know;
She gives but little; nor that little, long.
There is, I grant, a triumph of the pulse;
A dance of spirits, a mere froth of joy,
That mantles high, that sparkles and expires,
Leaving the soul more vapid than before';
An animal ovation! such as holds

No commerce with our reason, but subsists
On juices through the well-tun'd tubes, well-
strain'd;

A nice machine! scarce ever tun'd aright;
But when it jars, the syrens sing no more,
The demi-god is thrown beneath the man,
In coward gloom immers'd, or fell despair.

§ 239. False Gaiety ends in Despair. THEY grin; but wherefore? and how long they laugh!

Half ignorance, their mirth; and half a lie :
To cheat the world, and cheat themselves, they
smile.

Hard either task! The most abandon'd own,
That others, if abandon'd, are undone:
Then, for themselves, the moment reason wakes,
O how laborious is their gaiety!

They scarce can muster patience for the farce;
And pump sad laughter, till the curtain falls:
Scarce, did I say? Some cannot sit it out;
Oft their own daring hands the curtain draw,
And show us what their joy, by their despair.
The clotted hair! gor'd breast! blaspheming
eye!

Its impious fury still alive in death!

Shut, shut the shocking scene.-But heav'n

denies

A cover to such guilt; and so should man.
Look round, Lorenzo! see the reeking blade,
Th' envenom'd phial, and the fatal ball;
The strangling cord, and suffocating stream;
The loathsome rottenness and foul decays
From raging riot (slower suicides!),
And pride in these, more execrable still!-
How horrid all to thought!-But horrors, these,
That vouch the truth, and aid my feeble song.

$ 240. NIGHT IX. Reflections on Death. 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 pro

claim'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 canvas, or the featur'd 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 the 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
We sit; and, wrapt in immortality,
Shed gen'rous tears on wretches born to die,
Their fate deploring, to forget our own!

§241. The World a Grave. WHAT is the world itself? thy world? grave?

-a

Where is the dust that has not been alive?
The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors;
From human mould we reap our daily bread:
The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons:
O'er devastation we blind revels keep;
Whole buried towns support the dancer's heel:
The moist of human frame the sun exhales;
Winds scatter, through the mighty void, the dry;
Earth re-possesses part of what she gave,
And the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;
Each clement partakes our scatter'd spoils;
As nature wide, our ruins spread: man's death
Inhabits all things, but the thought of man.

§ 242. The Triumphs of Death.
NOR man alone; his breathing bust expires;
His tomb is mortal; empires die; Where now
The Roman? Greek? They stalk, an empty

name!

Yet few regard them in this useful light;
Though half our learning is their epitaph.
When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight
thought,

That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,
O Death! I stretch my view; what visions rise!
What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine!
In wither'd laurels, glide before my sight!
What lengths of far-fam'd ages, billow'd high
With human agitation, roll along
In unsubstantial images of air!
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whisp'ring faint echoes of the world's applause;
With penitential aspect, as they pass,
All point at earth, and hiss at human pride.

§ 243. Deluge and Conflagration.
BUT, O Lorenzo! far the rest above,
Of ghastly nature, and enormous size,
One form assaults my sight, and chills my blood,
And shakes my frame: of one departed world
I see the mighty shadow; oozy wreath
And dismal sea-weed crown her; o'er her urn
Reclin'd, she weeps her desolated realms,
And bloated sons; and, weeping, prophesies
Another's dissolution, soon, in flames.

Deluge and Conflagration, dreadful pow'rs! Prime ministers of vengeance! chain'd in caves Distinct, apart the giant-furies roar; Apart, or, such their horrid rage for ruin, In mutual conflict would they rise, and wage Eternal war, till one was quite devour'd: But not for this ordain'd their boundless rage; When heaven's inferior instruments of wrath, War, famine, pestilence, are found too weak To scourge a world for her enormous crimes ; These are let loose, alternate; down they rush, Swift and tempestuous, from th' eternal throne, With irresistible commission arm'd, The world, in vain corrected, to destroy, And ease creation of the shocking scene.

$244. The Last Day.

SEEST thou, Lorenzo! what depends on man?
The fate of nature; as, for man, her birth:
Earth's actors change earth's transitory scenes,
And make creation groan with human guilt:
How must it groan, in a new deluge whelm'd;
But not of waters! At the destin'd hour,
By the loud trumpet summon'd to the charge,
See, all the formidable sons of fire,
Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play
Their various engines; all at once disgorge
Their blazing magazines; and take by storm
This poor terrestrial citadel of man.

Amazing period: when each mountain-height
Out-burns Vesuvius; rocks eternal pour
Their melted mass, as rivers once they pour'd;
Stars rush; and final Ruin fiercely drives
Her ploughshare o'er creation !-while aloft
More than astonishment! if more can be!
Far other firmament than e'er was seen,
Than e'er was thought by man! far other stars!
Stars animate, that govern these of fire:
Far other sun!-A sun, O how unlike
The babe of Bethlem! How unlike the man
That groan'd on Calvary!-Yet, He it is;
That man of sorrows! O how chang'd! What
pomp!

In grandeur terrible, all heaven descends!
A swift archangel, with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds, that darken and disgrace
The scene divine, sweeps stars and suns aside:
And now, all dross remov'd, heav'n's own pure
Full on the confines of our ether, flames. [day,
While (dreadful contrast!) far, how far be-
neath!

Hell bursting, belches forth her blazing seas,
And storms sulphureous: her voracious jaws
Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey.

At midnight, when mankind is wrapp'd in

[blocks in formation]

Provide more firm support, or sink for ever! Where? how? from whence? Vain hope! it is too late!

Where, where, for shelter, shall the guilty fly, When consternation turns the good man pale? Great day! for which all other days were

made; [earth; For which earth rose from chaos; man from And an Eternity, the date of Gods, Descended on poor earth-created man! Great day of dread, decision, and despair! At thought of thee, each sublunary wish

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