Слике страница
PDF
ePub

Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective!
Till at death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone,
Where now my phrenzy's pompous furniture?
The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mould'ring mud, is royalty to me!
The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie

On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
O
ye blest scenes of permanent delight!
Full above measure! lasting, beyond bound!
A perpetuity of bliss is bliss.

Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghastly thought would drink up all
your joy,
And quite unparadise the realms of light.
Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres ;
The baleful influence of whose giddy dance
Sheds sad vicissitude on all beneath.
Here teems with revolutions every hour;
And rarely for the better; or the best,
More mortal than the common births of fate.
Each Moment has its sickle, emulous,

Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays

His little weapon in the narrower sphere

Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down
The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss.

Bliss! sublunary bliss!—proud words, and vain! Implicit treason to divine decree !

A bold invasion of the rights of heav'n!

I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace!
What darts of agony had miss'd my heart!
Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
The sun himself by thy permission shines;
And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his sphere.
Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust

Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean?

Why thy peculiar rancour wreak'd on me?
Insatiate archer ! could not one suffice?

Thy shaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was slain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.
O Cynthia! why so pale? Dost thou lament
Thy wretched neighbour? Grieve to see thy wheel
Of ceaseless change outwhirl'd in human life?
How wane's my borrow'd bliss! from fortune's smile,
Precarious courtesy ! not virtue's sure,
Self-given, solar ray of sound delight.

In ev'ry vary'd posture, place, and hour,
How widow'd ev'ry thought of ev'ry joy!
Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace!
Thro' the dark postern of time long laps'd,
Led softly, by the stillness of the night,

Led, like a murderer, (and such it proves!)
Strays (wretched rover !) o'er the pleasing Past;
In quest of wretchedness perversely strays;
And finds all desart now; and meets the ghosts
Of my departed joys; a num'rous train!
I rue the riches of my former fate;

Sweet comfort's blasted clusters I lament;
I tremble at the blessings once so dear;
And ev'ry pleasure pains me to the heart.
Yet why complain? or why complain for one?
Hangs out the sun his lustre but for me,
The single man? Are angels all beside?
I mourn for millions: 'Tis the common lot;
In this shape, or in that, has fate entail'd
The mother's throes on all of woman born,
Not more the children, than sure heirs, of pain.
War, Famine, Pest, Volcano, Storm, and Fire,
Intestine broils, Oppression, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind.
God's image disinherited of day,

Here, plung'd in mines, forgets a sun was made.
There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plow the winter's wave, and reap despair.
Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread thro' realms their valour sav'd,
If so the tyrant, or his minion, doom.
Want, and incurable disease, (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize

At once; and make a refuge of the grave.
How groaning hospitals eject their dead!
What numbers groan for sad admission there!
What numbers, once in fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold hand of charity!

To shock us more, solicit it in vain!

Ye silken sons of pleasure! since in pains
You rue more modish visits, visit here,

And breathe from your debauch: Give, and reduce
Surfeit's dominion o'er you: But so great
Your impudence, you blush at what is right.
Happy! did sorrow seize on such alone.
Not prudence can defend, or virtue save;
Disease invades the chastest temperance;
And punishment the guiltless; and alarm,
Thro' thickest shades, pursues the fond of peace.
Man's caution often into danger turns,
And, his guard falling, crushes him to death.
Not happiness itself makes good her name;
Our very wishes give us not our wish.
How distant oft the thing we doat on most,
From that for which we doat, felicity!
The smoothest course of nature has its pains;
And truest friends, thro' error, wound our rest.
Without misfortune, what calamities!

And what hostilities, without a foe!

Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.

But endless is the list of human ills,

And sighs might sooner fail, than cause to sigh.

A part how small of the terraqeous globe

Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,

Rocks, desarts, frozen seas, and burning sands: Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death. Such is earth's melancholy map! But, far

More sad! this earth is a true map of man.

So bounded are its haughty lord's delights
To woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss,
Loud sorrows howl invenom'd passions bite,
Rav'nous calamities our vitals seize,

age,

And threat'ning fate wide opens to devour.
What then am I, who sorrow for myself?
In
in infancy, from others' aid
Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind.
That nature's first, last lesson to mankind;
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels.
More gen'rous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts;
And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.
Nor virtue, more than prudence, bids me give
Swoln thought a second channel; who divide,
They weaken too, the torrent of their grief.
Take then O, World! thy much indebted tear:
How sad a sight is human happiness,

To those whose thought can pierce beyond an hour!
O thou! whate'er thou art, whose heart exults!
Wouldst thou I should congratulate thy fate?

I know thou wouldst; thy pride demands it from me. Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs,

The salutary censure of a friend.

Thou happy wretch ! by blindness thou art blest;

« ПретходнаНастави »