all your joy,

That ghastly thought would drink up
And quite unparadise the realms of light.
Safe are you lodged 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 Heaven!
I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
Oh! 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?

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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

เ

1 Thrice:' alluding to the death of his wife, his daughter Mrs Temple, and Mr Temple.-See Life.

Of ceaseless change outwhirl'd in human life?
How wanes my borrow'd bliss! from fortune's smile,
Precarious courtesy! not virtue's sure,

Self-given, solar ray of sound delight.

In every varied posture, place, and hour,
How widow'd every thought of every joy!
Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace!
Through the dark postern of time long lapsed,
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 desert now; and meets the ghosts
Of my departed joys; a numerous 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 every 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, plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made.
There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life ;
And plough the winter's wave, and reap despair
Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,

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In battle lopp'd away, with half their limbs,

Beg bitter bread through realms their valour saved,
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
Ye 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,
Through 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, through 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.

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A part how small of the terraqueous globe Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,

Rocks, deserts, 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, envenom'd passions bite,
Ravenous calamities our vitals seize,
And threatening fate wide opens to devour.
What then am I, who sorrow for myself?
In age, 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 generous 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!
Would'st thou I should congratulate thy fate?

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I know thou would'st; 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;

By dotage dandled to perpetual smiles.

Know, smiler! at thy peril art thou pleased;

Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.

Misfortune, like a creditor severe,

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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 Heaven tremendous in its frowns?
And in its favours formidable too:

Most sure;

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;
O'er our scann'd conduct give a jealous eye,
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 died with thee, Philander 1 thy last sigh
Dissolved the charm; the disenchanted earth
Lost all her lustre. Where her glittering towers?
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

Philander: Mr Temple, his son-in-law.

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