Voracious learning, often over-fed,
Digefts not into fenfe her motley meal.
This book-cafe, with dark booty almoft burst,
This forager on others' wisdom, leaves
Her native farm, her reafon, quite untill'd.
With mixt manure she surfeits the rank foil,
Dung'd, but not dreft; and rich to beggary..
A pomp untameable of weeds prevails.
Her fervant's wealth, incumber'd wifdom mourns.
And what fays genius?" Let the dull be wife.”
Genius, too hard for right, can prove it wrong;
And loves to boast, where blush men less inspir'd..
It pleads exemption from the laws of fenfe;
Confiders reafon as a leveller;
And scorns to share a bleffing with the croud.
That wife it could be, thinks an ample claim
To glory, and to pleasure gives the reft.
CRASSUS but fleeps, ARDELIO is undone..
Wifdom lefs fhudders at a fool, than wit.
But wisdom fmiles, when humbled mortals weep. When forrow wounds the breaft, as ploughs the glebe, And hearts obdurate feel her foft'ning shower;
Her feed celeftial, then, glad wisdom fows;
Her golden harveft triumphs in the foil.
If fo, NARCISSA! welcome my Relapse;
I'll raife a tax on my calamity,
And reap rich compenfation from my pain..
I'll range the plenteous intellectual field;
And gather ev'ry thought of fov'reign power
To chafe the moral maladies of man;
Thoughts, which may bear transplanting to the skies,.
Tho' natives of this coarse penurious foil;
Nor wholly wither there, where feraphs fing,
Refin'd, exalted, not annull'd, in heav'n.
Reafon, the fun that gives them birth, the fame
In either clime, tho' more illuftrious there.
Thefe choicely cull'd, and elegantly rang'd,
Shall form a garland for NARCISSA's tomb;
And, peradventure, of no fading flowers.
Say, on what themes fhall puzzled choice defcend ?^ "Th' importance of contemplating the tomb; "Why men decline it; fuicide's foul birth; "The various kinds of grief; the faults of age; "And death's dread character-invite my song." And, firft th' importance of our end furvey'd. Friends counfel quick difmiffion of our grief: Mistaken kindnefs! our hearts heal too foon. Are they more kind than be, who ftruck the blow? Who bid it do his errand in our hearts,
And banish peace, till nobler guests arrive,
And bring it back, a true, and endless peace?
Calamities are friends: As glaring day
Of thefe unnumber'd luftres robs our fight;
Profperity puts out unnumber'd thoughts
Of import high, and light divine, to man.
The man how bleft, who, fick of gaudy fcenes,
(Scenes apt to thrust between Us and Ourselves!)
Is led by choice to take his fav'rite walk,
Beneath death's gloomy, filent, cyprefs fhades,
Unpierc'd by vanity's fantastic ray;
To read his monuments, to weigh his duft,
Vifit his vaults, and dwell among the tombs!
LORENZO! read with me NARCISSA's ftone;
(NARCISSA was thy fav'rite) let us read
Her moral ftone; few doctors preach fo well;
Few orators fo tenderly can touch
The feeling heart. What pathos in the date!
Apt words can ftrike; and yet in them we see
Faint images of what we, here, enjoy.
What cause have we to build on length of life?
Temptations seize, when fear is laid asleep;
And ill foreboded is our strongest guard.
See from her tomb, as from an humble shrine,
Truth, radiant goddess! fallies on my foul,
And puts delufion's dusky train to flight;
Difpels the mifts our fultry passions raise,
From objects low, terreftrial, and obscene;
And fhews the real estimate of things;
Which no man, unafflicted, ever faw;
Pulls off the veil from virtue's rifing charms;
Detects temptation in a thousand lyes.
Truth bids me look on men, as autumn leaves,
And all they bleed for, as the fummer's duft,
Driv'n by the whirlwind: Lighted by her beams,
I widen my horizon, gain new powers,
See things invifible, feel things remote,
Am prefent with futurities; think nought
To man fo foreign, as the joys possest;
Nought fo much his, as thofe beyond the grave.
No folly keeps its colour in her fight;
Pale worldly wisdom lofes all her charms;
In pompous promife from her fchemes profound,
If future fate fhe plans, 'tis all in leaves,
Like Sybil, unfubftantial, fleeting blifs!
At the first blaft it vanishes in air.
Not fo, celestial: Wouldft thou know, LORENZO!
How differ worldly wisdom, and divine?
Juft as the waning, and the waxing moon.
More empty worldly wisdom ev'ry day;
And ev'ry day more fair her rival shines.
When later, there's lefs time to play the fool.
Soon our whole term for wisdom is expir'd
(Thou know'st she calls no council in the grave):
And everlasting fool is writ in fire,
Or real wisdom wafts us to the skies.
As worldly schemes refemble Sybil's leaves,
The good man's days to Sibyl's books compare,
(In antient story read, thou know'st the tale)
In price ftill rifing, as in number lefs,
Ineftimable quite his final hour.
For That who thrones can offer, offer thrones;
Infolvent worlds the purchase cannot pay.
"Oh let me die his death!" all nature cries.
"Then live his life"-All nature falters there.
Our great phyfician daily to confult,
To commune with the grave, our only cure.
What grave prefcribes the best?-A friend's; and yet, From a friend's grave, how foon we difengage? Ev'n to the deareft, as his marble, cold.
Why are friends ravisht from us? 'Tis to bind,
By foft affection's tyes, on human hearts,
The thought of death, which reafon, too fupine,
Or mifemploy'd, fo rarely faftens there.
Nor reason, nor affection, no, nor both
Combin'd, can break the witchcrafts of the world.
Behold, th' inexorable hour at hand!
Behold, th' inexorable hour forgot!
And to forget it, the chief aim of life,
Tho' well to ponder it, is life's chief end.
Is death, that ever threat'ning, ne'er remote,
That all-important, and that only fure,
(Come when he will) an unexpected guest?
Nay, tho' invited by the loudeft calls
Of blind imprudence, unexpected ftill?
Tho' num'rous meffengers are fent before,
To warn his great arrival. What the cause,
The wond'rous caufe, of this myfterious ill?
All heav'n looks down astonish'd at the fight.
Is it, that life has fown her joys fo thick,
We can't thrust in a single care between ?
Is it, that life has fuch a swarm of cares,
The thought of death can't enter for the throng ?
Is it, that time steals on with downy feet,
Nor wakes indulgence from her golden dream?
To-day is fo like yesterday, it cheats;
We take the lying fifter for the fame.
Life glides away, LORENZO! like a brook;
For ever changing, unperceiv'd the change.
In the fame brook none ever bath'd him twice:
To the fame life none ever twice awoke.
|