My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold, while others rest.

Through this opaque, of nature and of soul,
This double night, transmit one pitying ray,
To lighten and to cheer. Oh, lead my mind
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe),
Lead it through various scenes of life and death,
And from each scene the noblest truths inspire.
Nor less inspire my conduct than my song;
Teach my best
reason, reason; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

45

50

MY DEPARTED HOURS.

The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss: to give it then a tongue

55

Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours.

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.

60

43. This opaque, &c.: This darkness of nature (at night) and of my own soul. 47-8. Various scenes of life and death: If not more eloquent than the plea for immortality, far more useful and solid are Young's pictures of death and of the miseries of human life. He is undoubtedly the most patient and powerful limner death ever had. He says, indeed, that "the tyrant never sat;" he should have added, "except to me." To him, death is no vague shadow-he is a king of terrors; he is an insatiate archer; he is a near, powerful, almost visible foe. He has known him by direst experience; he hates him with a personal and perfect hatred; for did not "his shaft fly thrice, and thrice his peace was slain ;" and, like a good Scottish author, he is ready to "roar out in his agony and anguish," and to shake the while his fist in the face of the tyrant, as he cries, I shall yet be avenged of thee; thou shalt be swallowed up in “victory.”—GILFILLAN.

59. Knell: The clock, as it strikes, may be regarded as warning us of departed hours, just as the tolling church bell admonishes us of departed friends. It is also a signal (61) of important business to be speedily accomplished.

It is the signal that demands despatch:

How much is to be done! My hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down--on what? A fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

CONTRASTS IN MAN.

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man!

How passing wonder HE who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes!
From diff'rent natures, marvellously mix'd,
Connection exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt!
Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm a god!-I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost. At home, a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wond'ring at her own. How reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man,
Triumphantly distress'd! what joy! what dread!
Alternately transported and alarm'd!

What can preserve my life? or what destroy?

70

75

80

85

68. How poor, how rich, &c.: This passage is remarkable for the opposite lights in which man is presented, and displays to great advantage the author's fondness for bringing out contrasts. The reader will notice the following-poor, rich; abject, august; from nothing to the Deity: miniature of great• ness absolute; heir of glory, child of dust; insect infinite: a worm, a god; &c. 84. Her own: Her own properties, condition, and prospects.

An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

NIGHT PROCLAIMS THE SOUL IMMORTAL.

'Tis past conjecture: all things rise in proof.
While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spreads,
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields, or mourn'd along the gloom
Of pathless woods, or, down the craggy steep
Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool,
Or scaled the cliff, or danced on hollow winds
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?
Her ceaseless flight, tho' devious, speaks her nature
Of subtler essence than the trodden clod,
Active, aerial, towering, unconfined,
Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall.

90

95

100

E'en silent night proclaims my soul immortal :
E'en silent night proclaims eternal day.

For human weal Heav'n husbands all events:

105

Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.

THE BURIED LIVE.

Why then their loss deplore that are not lost?

Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around
In infidel distress? Are angels there?

Slumbers, raked up in dust, ethereal fire?

They live, they greatly live a life on earth

110

96. Mantled: The idea is probably that which Thomson more fully expresses in his "Summer."

"where the pool

stands mantled o'er with green, etc.,

105. Husbands all events: Directs skilfully, or makes useful all events. Even sleep, and fantastic dreams, are not without their moral use.

110. Slumbers, raked up, &c.: Does ethereal fire (the soul) slumber, covered up in dust; in the dust of the body it once occupied ?

111. They greatly live, &c.: They, in an emphatic sense, live a life which on earth was unkindled, unconceived: their life is of a far superior order to what they passed or conceived on earth. Instead, therefore, of being proper

Unkindled, unconceived; and from an eye

Of tenderness let heav'nly pity fall

On me, more justly number'd with the dead.
This is the desert, this the solitude:
How populous, how vital is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,
The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom,
The land of apparitions, empty shades!
All, all on earth is shadow, all beyond

Is substance; the reverse is folly's creed:

How solid all where change shall be no more!

115

120

THIS LIFE, ONLY THE COMMENCEMENT OF BEING.

This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,

The twilight of our day, the vestibule.

objects of pity, they let fall upon us, inhabitants of this world, the tear of pity, and more justly may denominate us the dead, than be regarded themselves as the dead. The thought is an ingenious and striking one.

115. This is the desert, &c.: This (scene of human life) is the desert, &c.; another striking thought. We are accustomed to speak of the grave as a solitude, a desert; but, says our author, this is a mistake. The grave is more populous, more vital (full of that which had enjoyed life), than the earth's surface. The dead are more numerous than the living. In another place, Young says:-"Where is the dust which has not been alive?"

118. Sad cypress gloom: The branches of the cypress awaken feelings of sadness from association, as they were anciently borne in funereal processions, and in the East, to this day, the evergreen cypress forms an appropriate ornament of the grave-yard.

123. Bud of being: The author employs a great variety of figures to convey forcibly the idea that in this life we have scarcely begun to live; that our principal career lies beyond the present scene of things. This is com. pared to a bud, or flower yet unexpanded: next, to the dim dawn, or early twilight, which is followed by a long and brilliant day; next, to the vestibule of a theatre-the porch, or entrance chamber. The theatre itself is represented as being yet shut, and its doors are opened only to the strong arm of death. When this takes place we shall then witness those scenes which are more worthy of the name of life than the present state exhibits.

The author, to impress the same thought, metaphorically denominates us, in the present state, mere embryos of existence-beings not yet fully formed to enjoy or to possess existence.

Life's theatre as yet is shut, and Death,

125

Strong Death, alone can heave the massy bar,

This gross impediment of clay remove,

And make us embryos of existence free.
From real life, but little more remote
Is he, not yet a candidate for light,
The future embryo, slumb'ring in his sire.
Embryos we must be till we burst the shell,
Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life,
The life of Gods (O transport!) and of man.

130

THE BURIAL OF CELESTIAL HOPES.

Yet man, fool man, here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial hopes without one sigh:
Pris'ner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,

Here pinions all his wishes, wing'd by Heav'n
To fly at infinite, and reach it there,
Where seraphs gather immortality,

On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrosial clust'ring glow

133. Yon ambient azure shell: The blue sky.

135

140

134. The life of gods: The life of angels. The author very frequently in this poem, uses the term gods in this subordinate sense; sometimes also to denote men in the heavenly state, (Night IV. 496) from the immense advancement which they shall have there attained in all that ennobles our nature and renders it happy. Thus in Night III., 432-7.

"A good man and an angel! these between

How thin the barrier! what divides their fate?

Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year;

Or if an age it is a moment still;

A moment, or eternity's forgot.

Then be what once they were who now are gods."

138. Here pinions all his wishes, &c.: Here binds the wings of all his wishes. Our wishes are represented as furnished with wings capable of bearing us upward to infinite (to infinity), that is, to enjoyments immeasurably superior to those found on earth. But man, fool man, confines his wishes to the low and inferior objects of earth.

142. Golden joys ambrosial: Rich, mellow fruits, of fragrant odour, and yielding the highest joys.