I know thou wouldft; thy pride demands it from me.
Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs,
The falutary cenfure of a friend.
Thou happy wretch! by blindness thou art bleft;
By dotage dandled to perpetual fmiles.
Know, fmiler! at thy peril art thou pleas'd;
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor fevere,
But rifes in demand for her delay;
She makes a fcourge of paft profperity,
To fting thee more, and double thy diftrefs.
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 fecure thy joys.
Think not that fear is facred to the ftorm :
Stand on thy guard against the smiles of fate.
Is heaven tremendous in its frowns? Moft fure;
And in its favours formidable too :
Its favours here are trials, not rewards ;
A call to duty, not difcharge from care;
And fhould alarm us, full as much as woes;
Awake us to their cause and confequence ;
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our defert;
Awe nature's tumult, and chastise her joys,
Left, while we clasp, we kill them; nay, invert
To worse than simple mifery, their charms.
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bofom friendships to refentment four'd,
With rage envenom'd rife against our peace.
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire.
Who builds on lefs than an immortal bafe,
Fond as he feems, condemns his joys to death.
Mine dy'd with thee, Philander! thy laft figh 345
Diffolv'd the charm; the difenchanted earth
Loft all her luftre. 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 350
Of out-caft earth, in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! Thy darling hope fo near,
(Long-labour'd prize !) O how ambition flush'd
Thy glowing cheek! Ambition truly great,
Of virtuous praife. Death's fubtle feed within
(Sly, treacherous miner!) working in the dark,
Smil'd at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon'd
The worm to riot on that rose so red,
Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!
Man's forefight is conditionally wife;
Lorenzo! wifdom into folly turns
Oft, the first inftant, its idea fair
To labouring thought is born. How dim our eye!
The prefent moment terminates our fight;
Clouds, thick as those on doomsday, drown the next; 365 We penetrate, we prophecy in vain.
Time is dealt out by particles; and each,
Ere mingled with the ftreaming fands of life,
By Fate's inviolable oath is fworn
Deep filence, "Where eternity begins."
By nature's law, what may be, may be
There's no prerogative in human hours.
In human hearts what bolder thought can rife,
Than man's prefumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is fure to none; and yet on this perhaps,
This peradventure, infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant, we build
Our mountain hopes; fpin out eternal schemes,
As we the fatal fifters could out-spin,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.
Not ev'n Philander had bespoke his shroud :
Nor had he caufe; a warning was deny'd:
How many fall as fudden, not as fafe!
As fudden, though for years admonish'd home.
Of human ills the laft extreme beware,
Beware, Lorenzo! a flow fudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate furprize!
Be wife to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pufh'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vaft concerns of an eternal scene.
If not fo frequent, would not This be strange?
That 'tis fo frequent, This is ftranger still.
Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, “That all men are about to live,”
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel: and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future felves applaud; 405
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's, to wifdem they confign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they pofipone;
'Tis not in folly, not to fcorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
-All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage: when In full content we, fometimes, nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves; and only with, As duteous fons, our fathers were more wife. At thirty man fufpects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpofe to refolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Refolves; and re-resolves; then dies the fame. And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal, but Themfelves; Themselves, when fome alarming shock of fate 425 Strikes through their wounded hearts the fudden dread; But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon clofe; where, past the shaft, no trace is found. As from the wing no fcar the fky retains; The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thoughts of death.
Ev'n with the tender tear which nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their
Can I forget Philander? That were strange!
O my full heart!—But should I give it vent,
The longest night, though longer far, would fail,
And the lark liften to my midnight long.
The fpritely lark's fhrill matin wakes the morn;
Grief's fharpeft thorn hard preffing on my breaft,
I frive, with wakeful melody, to chear
The fullen gloom, fweet Philomel! like Thee,
And call the ftars to liften: every ftar
Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay.
Yet be not vain; there are, who thine excel,
And charm through diftant ages: wrapt in fhade, 445 Prifoner of darknefs! to the filent hours,
How often I repeat their rage divine,
To lull my griefs, and fteal my heart from woe
I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire.
Dark, though not blind, like thee, Mæonides!
Or, Milton! thee; ah, could I reach your
Or His, who made Mæonides our Orun.
Man too He sung: immortal man I fing;
Oft burfts my fong beyond the bounds of life;
What, now, but immortality can please ?
O had He prefs'd his theme, purfued the track,'
Which opens out of darkness into day!
O had he, mounted on his wing of fire,
Soar'd where I fink, and fung immortal man!
How had it bleft mankind, and rescued me!
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