The Land of Apparitions, empty Shades! All, all on Earth is Shadow, all beyond Is Subftance: the Reverfe is Folly's Creed: How folid all, where Change fhall be no more! This is the Bud of Being, the dim Dawn, The Twilight of our Day, the Vestibule ; Life's Theatre as yet is fhut, and Death, Strong Death, alone can heave the maffy Bar, This grofs Impediment of Clay remove, And make us Embryos of Exiftence free. From real Life, but little more remote Is He, not yet a Candidate for Light, The future Embryo, flumb'ring in his Sire. Embryos we muft be, till we burft the Shell, Yon ambient azure Shell, and spring to Life, The Life of Gods, O Tranfport! and of Man.. Yet Man, fool Man! here buries all his Thoughts; Interrs celestial Hopes without one Sigh.
Pris'ner of Earth, and pent beneath the Moon, Here pinions all his Wifhes; wing'd by Heav'n To fly at Infinite; and reach it there,
Where Seraphs gather Immortality,
On Life's fair Tree, faft by the Throne of God. What golden Joys ambrofial cluft'ring glow,
In HIS full Beam, and ripen for the Juft,
Where momentary Ages are no more!
Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death, expire! And is it in the Flight of threefcore Years, To push Eternity from human Thought, And mother Souls immortal in the Duft? A Soul immortal, spending all her Fires, Wafting her Strength in ftrenuous Idleness, Thrown into Tumult, raptur'd, or alarm'd, At ought this Scene can threaten, or indulge,
Refembles Ocean into Tempest wrought,
To waft a Feather, or to drown a Fly.
Where falls this Cenfure? It o'erwhelms myfelf; How was my Heart incrufted by the World!
O how felf-fetter'd was my grov'ling Soul! How, like a Worm, was I wrapt round and round In filken Thought, which reptile Fancy fpun, 'Till darken'd Reafon lay quite clouded o'er With foft Conceit of endless Comfort here, Nor yet put forth her Wings to reach the Skies! Night-vifions may befriend (as fung above): Our waking Dreams are fatal. How I dreamt Of things impoffible? (Could Sleep do more ?) Of Joys perpetual in perpetual Change? Of ftable Pleafures on the toffing 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 Phrenfy'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 Blifs; it breaks at ev'ry Breeze.
O ye bleft Scenes of permanent Delight! Full, above Measure! lafting, beyond Bound! A Perpetuity of Blifs is Blifs.
Could you, fo rich in Rapture, fear an End, That ghaftly Thought would drink up all your Joy, And quite unparadife the Realms of Light. Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling Spheres;
The baleful Influence of whofe giddy Dance Sheds fad Viciffitude on all beneath.
Here teems with Revolutions ev'ry 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, whofe ample Sweep Strikes Empires from the Root; each Moment plays His little Weapon in the narrower Sphere. Of sweet domeftic Comfort, and cuts down The fairest Bloom of fublunary Blifs.
Blifs! fublunary Blifs!-Proud Words, and vain! Implicit Treafon to divine Decree !
A bold Invafion of the Rights of Heav'n! I clafp'd the Phantoms, and I found them Air. O had I weigh'd it ere my fond Embrace! What Darts of Agony had mifs'd my Heart!
Death! Great Proprietor of All! 'tis thine To tread out Empire, and to quench the Stars. The Sun himself by thy Permiflion shines ;
And, one Day, thou fhalt pluck him from his Sphere. Amid fuch mighty Plunder, why exhaust Thy partial Quiver on a Mark fo mean? Why thy peculiar Rancour wreak'd on me ? Infatiate Archer! could not One fuffice?
Thy Shaft flew thrice; and thrice my Peace was flain; And thrice, ere thrice yon Moon had fill'd her Horn. O Cynthia why fo pale? Doft thou lament Thy wretched Neighbour? Grieve to fee thy Wheel Of ceafelefs Change out-whirl'd in human Life? How wanes my borrow'd Blifs! from Fortune's Smile, Precarious Courtesy! Not Virtue's fure, Self-given, folar, Ray of found Delight.
In ev'ry vary'd Pofture, Place, and Hour, How widow'd ev'ry Thought of ev'ry Joy!
Thought, bufy Thought! too busy for my Peace! Thro' the dark Poftern of Time long elaps'd,
Led foftly, by the Stilnefs of the Night,. Led, like a Murderer, (and fuch it proves!) Strays, (wretched Rover!) o'er the pleafing Paft; In quest of Wretchednefs perverfely strays; And finds all defart now; and meets the Ghofts Of my departed Joys; a num'rous Train! I rue the Riches of my former Fate; Sweet Comfort's blafted Clufters I lament; I tremble at the Bleffings once fo dear; And ev'ry Pleasure pains me to the Heart. Yet why complain? or why complain for One? Hangs out the Sun his Luftre but for me, The fingle Man? Are Angels all befide? 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 fure Heirs of Pain. War, Famine, Peft, Volcano, Storm, and Fire, Inteftine Broils, Oppreffion, with her Heart Wrapt up in triple Brafs, befiege Mankind. God's Image difinherited of Day,
Here, plung'd in Mines, forgets a Sun was made. There, Beings deathlefs as their haughty Lord, Are hammer'd to the galling Ore for Life; And plow the Winter's Wave, and reap Despair. Some, for hard Mafters, broken under Arms, In Battle lopt away, with half their Limbs, Beg bitter Bread thro' Realms their Valour fav'd, If fo the Tyrant, or his Minion, doom. Want, and incurable Difeafe, (fell Pair !) On hopeless Multitudes remorfeless seize At once; and make a Refuge of the Grave. How groaning Hofpitals eject their Dead!
What Numbers groan for fad Admiffion there! What Numbers, once in Fortune's Lap high-fed, Solicit the cold Hand of Charity !
To fhock us more, folicit it in vain!
Ye filken Sons of Pleafure! fince in Pains
You rue more modish Visits, visit here,
And breathe from your Debauch: Give, and reduce Surfeit's Dominion o'er you: But fo great Your Impudence, you blush at what is Right. Happy! did Sorrow seize on such alone. Not Prudence can defend, or Virtue fave; Disease invades the chafteft Temperance; And Punishment the Guiltlefs; 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 Smootheft Courfe of Nature has its Pains; And trueft Friends, thro' Error, wound our Rest Without Misfortune, what Calamities?
And what Hoftilities, without a Foe?
Nor are Foes wanting to the best on Earth.
But endless is the Lift of human Ills,
And Sighs might fooner fail, than Caufe to figh. A Part how small of the terraqueous Globe
Is tenanted by Man! the reft a Waste,
Rocks, Defarts, frozen Seas, and burning Sands! Wild Haunts of Monsters, Poifons, Stings, and Death.
Such is Earth's melancholy Map! But far
More fad this Earth is a true Map of Man.
So bounded are its haughty Lord's Delights
To Woe's wide Empire; where deep Troubles tofs,
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