Whose lavish hand, whose love stupendous, pours
So much of Deity on guilty dust.

There, O my Lucia! may I meet thee there,
Where not thy presence can improve my bliss!
Affects not this the sages of the world?
Can nought affect them, but what fools them too?
Eternity, depending on an hour,

Makes serious thought man's wisdom, joy, and praise. Nor need you blush (though sometimes your designs

May shun the light) at your designs on Heaven:
Sole point! where over-bashful is your blame.
Are you not wise?-You know you are: yet hear
One truth, amid your numerous schemes, mislaid,
Or overlook'd, or thrown aside, if seen;
"Our schemes to plan by this world, or the next,
Is the sole difference between wise and fool."
All worthy men will weigh you in this scale;
What wonder then, if they pronounce you light?
Is their esteem alone not worth your care?
Accept my simple scheme, of common sense;
Thus, save your fame, and make two worlds your

own.

The world replies not;—but the world persists; And puts the cause off to the longest day, Planning evasions for the day of doom. So far, at that re-hearing, from redress, They then turn witnesses against themselves: Hear that, Lorenzo! nor be wise to-morrow. Haste, haste! A man, by nature, is in haste; For who shall answer for another hour? "Tis highly prudent, to make one sure friend; And that thou canst not do, this side the skies.

Has ventur'd into light; well-pleas'd the verse
Should be forgot, if you the truths retain:
And crown her with your welfare, not your praise.
But praise she need not fear: I see my fate;
And headlong leap, like Curtius, down the gulf,
Since many an ample volume, mighty tome,
Must die; and die unwept; O thou minute,
Devoted page! go forth among thy foes;
Go nobly proud of martyrdom for truth,
And die a double death: mankind, incens'd,
Denies thee long to live: nor shalt thou rest
When thou art dead; in Stygian shades arraign'd
By Lucifer, as traitor to his throne,
And bold blasphemer of his friend-the world;
The world, whose legions cost him slender pay,
And volunteers around his banner swarm;
Prudent, as Prussia, in her zeal for Gaul!

"Are all, then, fools?" Lorenzo cries-Yes, all, But such as hold this doctrine (new to thee;)

HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE.

-Fatis contraria fata rependens.-Virg.

As when a traveller, a long day past
In painful search of what he cannot find,
At night's approach, content with the next cot,
There ruminates, awhile, his labor lost;
Then cheers his heart with what his fate affords,
And chants his sonnet to deceive the time,
Till the due season calls him to repose:
Thus I, long-travel'd in the ways of men,
And dancing, with the rest, the giddy maze,
Where disappointment smiles at hope's career;
Warn'd by the languor of life's evening ray,
At length have hous'd me in an humble shed;
Where, future wandering banish'd from my thought,
And waiting, patient, the sweet hour of rest,
I chase the moments with a serious song.
Song soothes our pains; and age has pains to soothe.
When age, care, crime, and friends embrac'd at
heart,

NIGHT THE NINTH AND LAST.

THE CONSOLATION.

CONTAINING, AMONG OTHER THINGS,

I. A Moral Survey of the Nocturnal Heavens. II. A Night Address to the Deity.

Torn from my bleeding breast, and death's dark shade. Which hovers o'er me, quench th' ethereal fire; Canst thou, O Night! indulge one labor more? One labor more indulge! then sleep, my strain! Till, haply, wak'd by Raphael's golden lyre, Where night, death, age, care, crime, and sorrow,

cease;

To bear a part in everlasting lays;
Though far, far higher set, in aim, I trust,
Symphonious to this humble prelude here.

Has not the Muse asserted pleasures pure,
Like those above; exploding other joys?
Weigh what was urg'd, Lorenzo! fairly weigh;
And tell me, hast thou cause to triumph still?
I think, thou wilt forbear a boast so bold.
But if, beneath the favor of mistake,
Thy smile's sincere; not more sincere can be
Lorenzo's smile, than my compassion for him.
The sick in body call for aid; the sick
In mind are covetous of more disease;
And when at worst, they dream themselves quite
well.

To know ourselves diseas'd, is half our cure.
When nature's blush by custom is wip'd off,
And conscience, deaden'd by repeated strokes,
Has into manners naturaliz'd our crimes;
The curse of curses is, our curse to love;
To triumph in the blackness of our guilt,
(As Indians glory in the deepest jet,)
And throw aside our senses with our peace.

But grant no guilt, no shame, no least alloy;
Grant joy and glory quite unsullied shone;
Yet, still, it ill deserves Lorenzo's heart.
No joy, no glory, glitters in thy sight,
But, through the thin partition of an hour,
I see its sables wove by destiny;

And that in sorrow buried; this, in shame ;
While howling furies ring the doleful knell ;
And conscience, now so soft thou scarce canst hear
Her whisper, echoes her eternal peal.

Where, the prime actors of the last year's scene;
Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume?
How many sleep, who kept the world awake
With lustre, and with noise! Has Death proclaim'd
A truce, and hung his sated lance on high?
"Tis brandish'd still; nor shall the present year
Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or spread of feeble life a thinner fall.

But needless monuments to wake the thought; Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality, Though in a style more florid, full as plain, As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs. What are our noblest ornaments, but deaths Turn'd flatterers of life, in paint or marble, The well-stain'd canvas, or the featur'd stone? Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene. Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.

*6

Profest diversions!-cannot these escape?"
Far from it: these present us with a shroud;
And talk of death, like garlands o'er a grave.
As some bold plunderers, for buried wealth,
We ransack tombs for pastime; from the dust
Call up the sleeping hero; bid him tread
The scene for our amusement: how like gods
We sit; and, wrapt in immortality,

Shed generous tears on wretches born to die;
Their fate deploring, to forget our own!
What all the pomps and triumphs of our lives,
But legacies in blossom? Our lean soil,
Luxuriant grown, and rank in vanities,
From friends interr'd beneath, a rich manure!
Like other worms, we banquet on the dead;
Like other worms, shall we crawl on, nor know
Our present frailties, or approaching fate?

Lorenzo! such the glories of the world!
What is the world itself? Thy world-a grave.
Where is the dust that has not been alive?
The spade, the plow, disturb our ancestors;
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around Earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons.
O'er devastation we blind revels keep;
Whole buried towns support the dancer's heel.
The moist of human frame the Sun exhales;
Winds scatter through the mighty void the dry;
Earth repossesses part of what she gave,
And the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;
Each element partakes our scatter'd spoils ;
As Nature, wide, our ruins spread: man's death
Inhabits all things, but the thought of man.

Nor man alone; his breathing bust expires, His tomb is mortal; empires die: where now The Roman? Greek? they stalk, an empty name! Yet few regard them in this useful light; Though half our learning is their epitaph. When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought, That loves to wander in thy sunless realms, O Death! I stretch my view; what visions rise! What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine! In wither'd laurels glide before my sight! What lengths of far-fam'd ages, billow'd high With human agitation, roll along In unsubstantial images of air!

The melancholy ghosts of dead renown, Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause, With penitential aspect, as they pass,

All point at Earth, and hiss at human pride,
The wisdom of the wise, and prancings of the great.
But, O Lorenzo! far the rest above,
Of ghastly nature, and enormous size,
One form assaults my sight, and chills my blood,
And shakes my frame. Of one departed world
I see the mighty shadow: oozy wreath
And dismal sea-weed crown her; o'er her urn
Reclin'd, she weeps her desolated realms,
And bloated sons; and, weeping, prophesies
Another's dissolution, soon, in flames.
But, like Cassandra, prophesies in vain;
In vain, to many; not, I trust, to thee.

For, know'st thou not, or art thou loth to know, The great decree, the counsel of the skies? Deluge and conflagration, dreadful powers! Prime ministers of vengeance! chain'd in caves Distinct, apart the giant furies roar ; Apart; or, such their horrid rage for ruin, In mutual conflict would they rise, and wage Eternal war, till one was quite devour'd. But not for this ordain'd their boundless rage; When Heaven's inferior instruments of wrath, War, famine, pestilence, are found too weak To scourge a world for her enormous crimes, These are let loose, alternate: down they rush, Swift and tempestuous, from th' eternal throne, With irresistible commission arm'd, The world, in vain corrected, to destroy, And ease creation of the shocking scene.

See'st thou, Lorenzo! what depends on man?
The fate of Nature; as for man, her birth.
Earth's actors change Earth's transitory scenes,
And make creation groan with human guilt.
How must it groan, in a new deluge whelm'd,
But not of waters! at the destin'd hour,
By the loud trumpet summon'd to the charge,
See, all the formidable sons of fire,
Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play
Their various engines; all at once disgorge
Their blazing magazines; and take, by storm,
This poor terrestrial citadel of man.

Amazing period! when each mountain-height
Out-burns Vesuvius; rocks eternal pour
Their melted mass, as rivers once they pour'd;
Stars rush; and final ruin fiercely drives
Her plowshare o'er creation!-while aloft,
More than astonishment! if more can be!
Far other firmament than e'er was seen,
Than e'er was thought by man! far other stars!
Stars animate, that govern these of fire;
Far other Sun!—A Sun, O how unlike
The babe at Bethlem! how unlike the man
That groan'd on Calvary!-Yet he it is;
That Man of Sorrows! O how chang'd! what pomp!
in grandeur terrible, all Heaven descends!
And gods, ambitious, triumph in his train.
A swift archangel, with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds, that darken and disgrace
The scene divine, sweeps stars and suns aside.
And now, all dross remov'd, Heaven's own pure day
Full on the confines of our ether, flames.
While (dreadful contrast!) far, how far beneath!
Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing seas,
And storms sulphureous; her voracious jaws
Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey.
Lorenzo! welcome to this scene; the last
In Nature's course; the first in wisdom's thought.
This strikes, if aught can strike thee! this awakes
The most supine; this snatches man from death.

Rouse, rouse, Lorenzo, then, and follow me,
Where truth, the most momentous man can hear,
Loud calls my soul, and ardor wings her flight.
I find my inspiration in my theme;
The grandeur of my subject is my Muse.

At midnight, when mankind is wrapt in peace,
And worldly fancy feeds on golden dreams;
To give more dread to man's most dreadful hour,
At midnight, 'tis presum'd this pomp will burst
From tenfold darkness; sudden as the spark
From smitten steel; from nitrous grain, the blaze.
Man, starting from his couch, shall sleep no more!
The day is broke, which never more shall close!
Above, around, beneath, amazement all!
Terror and glory join'd in their extremes!
Our God in grandeur, and our world on fire!
All Nature struggling in the pangs of death!
Dost thou not hear her? Dost thou not deplore
Her strong convulsions, and her final groan?
Where are we now? Ah me! the ground is gone
On which we stood: Lorenzo! while thou may'st,
Provide more firm support, or sink for ever!
Where? how? from whence? Vain hope! it is too late!
Where, where, for shelter, shall the guilty fly,
When consternation turns the good man pale?

Shall man alone, whose fate, whose final fate, Hangs on that hour, exclude it from his thought? I think of nothing else; I see! I feel it! All Nature, like an earthquake, trembling round All deities, like summer's swarms, on wing! All basking in the full meridian blaze!

Great day! for which all other days were made;
For which Earth rose from chaos, man from Earth;
And an eternity, the date of Gods,
Descended on poor earth-created man!
Great day of dread, decision, and despair!
At thought of thee, each sublunary wish
Lets go its eager grasp, and drops the world;
And catches at each reed of hope in Heaven.
At thought of thee!-and art thou absent then?
Lorenzo! no; 'tis here; it is begun ;-
Already is begun the grand assize,

In thee, in all: deputed conscience scales
The dread tribunal, and forestalls our doom;
Forestalls; and, by forestalling, proves it sure.
Why on himself should man void judgment pass?
Is idle Nature laughing at her sons?
Who conscience sent, her sentence will support,
And God above assert that god in man.
Thrice-happy they! that enter now the court
Heaven opens in their bosoms: but, how rare,
Ah me! that magnanimity, how rare!
What hero, like the man who stands himself;
Who dares to meet his naked heart alone;
Who hears, intrepid, the full charge it brings,
Resolv'd to silence future murmurs there?
The coward flies; and, flying, is undone.
(Art thou a coward? No:) the coward flies;
Thinks, but thinks slightly; asks, but fears to know;
Asks," What is truth?" with Pilate; and retires;
Dissolves the court, and mingles with the throng;
Asylum sad! from reason, hope, and Heaven!

Shall all, but man, look out with ardent eye,
For that great day, which was ordain'd for man?
O day of consummation! mark supreme
(If men are wise) of human thought! nor least,
Or in the sight of angels, or their King!
Angels, whose radiant circles, height o'er height,
Order o'er order, rising, blaze o'er blaze,
As in a theatre, surround this scene,
Intent on man, and anxious for his fate.
Angels look out for thee; for thee, their Lord,
To vindicate his glory; and for thee,
Creation universal calls aloud,

To dis-involve the moral world, and give
To Nature's renovation brighter charms.

I see the Judge enthron'd! the flaming guard! The volume open'd! open'd every heart!

A sunbeam pointing out each secret thought;
No patron! intercessor none! now past
The sweet, the clement, mediatorial hour!
For guilt no plea! to pain, no pause! no bound *
Inexorable, all! and all, extreme!

Nor man alone; the foe of God and man, From his dark den, blaspheming, drags his chain, And rears his brazen front, with thunder scarr'd Receives his sentence, and begins his hell. All vengeance past, now, seems abundant grace. Like meteors in a stormy sky, how roll His baleful eyes; he curses whom he dreads; And deems it the first moment of his fall.

'Tis present to my thought!—and yet where is it Angels can't tell me; angels cannot guess The period; from created beings lock'd In darkness. But the process, and the place, Are less obscure; for these may man inquire. Say, thou great close of human hopes and fears! Great key of hearts! great finisher of fates! Great end! and great beginning! say, Where art thou?

Art thou in time, or in eternity?
Nor in eternity, nor time, I find thee.

These, as two monarchs, on their borders meet,
(Monarchs of all elaps'd, or unarriv'd!)
As in debate, how best their powers allied
May swell the grandeur, or discharge the wrath,
Of him, whom both their monarchies obey.

Time, this vast fabric, for him built (and doom?
With him to fall) now bursting o'er his head;
His lamp, the Sun, extinguish'd; from beneath
The frown of hideous darkness, calls his sons
From their long slumber! from Earth's heaving
womb,

To second birth! contemporary throng!
Rous'd at one call, upstarted from one bed,
Prest in one crowd, appall'd with one amaze,
He turns them o'er, Eternity! to thee.
Then (as a king depos'd disdains to live)
He falls on his own scythe; nor falls alone;
His greatest foe falls with him; Time, and he
Who murder'd ail Time's offspring, Death, expire

Time was! Eternity now reigns alone! Awful eternity! offended queen!

And her resentment to mankind, how just! With kind intent, soliciting access,

How often has she knock'd at human hearts!
Rich to repay their hospitality,
How often call'd! and with the voice of God!
Yet bore repulse, excluded as a cheat!

A dream! while foulest foes found welcome there!
A dream, a cheat, now, all things, but her smile.

For, lo! her twice ten thousand gates thrown wide As thrice from Indus to the frozen Pole, With banners streaming as the comet's blaze, And clarions, louder than the deep in storms, Sonorous as immortal breath can blow, Pour forth their myriads, potentates, and powers, Of light, of darkness; in a middle field, Wide, as creation! populous, as wide! A neutral region! there to mark th' event

What rocks are these, on which to build our trust!
Thy ways
admit no blemish; none I find;
Or this alone" That none is to be found."
Not one, to soften censure's hardy crime;
Not one, to palliate peevish grief's complaint,
Who like a demon, murmuring from the dust,
Dares into judgment call her Judge.-Supreme!
For all I bless thee; most, for the severe;
Her death-my own at hand-the fiery gulf,
That flaming bound of wrath omnipotent!
It thunders;-but it thunders to preserve;
It strengthens what it strikes; its wholesome dread
Averts the dreaded pain; its hideous groans
Join Heaven's sweet hallelujahs in thy praise,
Great source of good alone! How kind in all!
In vengeance kind! pain, death, gehenna save.

Thus, in thy world material, Mighty Mind!
Not that alone which solaces, and shines,
The rough and gloomy, challenges our praise.
The winter is as needful as the spring;
The thunder, as the Sun; a stagnant mass
Of vapors breeds a pestilential air;
Nor more propitious the Favonian breeze
To Nature's health, than purifying storms;
The dread valcano ministers to good.

Its smother'd flames might undermine the world.
Loud Etnas fulminate in love to man;
Comets good omens are when duly scann'd;
And, in their use, eclipses learn to shine.

Man is responsible for ills receiv'd;
Those we call wretched are a chosen band,
Compell'd to refuge in the right, for peace.
Amid my list of blessings infinite,
Stand this the foremost, "That my heart has bled."
"Tis Heaven's last effort of good-will to man;
When pain can't bless, Heaven quits us in despair.
Who fails to grieve, when just occasion calls,
Or grieves too much, deserves not to be blest;
Inhuman, or effeminate, his heart;

The grand tribunal rais'd; assign'd the bounds
Of human grief: in few, to close the whole,
The moral Muse has shadow'd out a sketch,
Though not in form, nor with a Raphael-stroke,
Of most our weakness needs believe, or do,
In this our land of travel and of hope,
For peace on Earth, or prospect of the skies.

What then remains? Much! much! a mighty debt To be discharg'd: these thoughts, O Night! are thine :

Reason absolves the grief, which reason ends.
May Heaven ne'er trust my friend with happiness,
Till it has taught him how to bear it well,
By previous pain; and made it safe to smile!
Such smiles are mine, and such may they remain;
Nor hazard their extinctions, from excess.
My change of heart a change of style demands;
The consolation cancels the complaint,
And makes a convert of my guilty song.
And when o'erlabor'd, and inclin'd to breathe,
A panting traveller some rising ground,
Some small ascent, has gain'd, he turns him round,
And measures with his eye the various vales,
The fields, woods, meads, and rivers, he has past;
And, satiate of his journey, thinks of home,
Endear'd by distance, nor affects more toil;
Thus I, though small, indeed, is that ascent
The Muse has gain'd, review the paths she trod;
Various, extensive, beaten but by few;
And, conscious of her prudence in repose,
Pause; and with pleasure meditate an end,
Though still remote; so fruitful is my theme.
Through many a field of moral, and divine,
The muse has stray'd; and much of sorrow seen
In human ways; and much of false and vain;
Which none, who travel this bad road, can miss.
O'er friends deceas'd full heartily she wept;
Of love divine the wonders she display'd;
Prov'd man immortal; show'd the source of joy;

* Lucia.

From thee they came, like lovers' secret sighs,
While others slept. So Cynthia (poets feign)
In shadows veil'd, soft sliding from her sphere,
Her shepherd cheer'd; of her enamour'd less,
Than I of thee-And art thou still unsung,
Beneath whose brow, and by whose aid, I sing?
Immortal silence! where shall I begin?
Where end? Or how steal music from the spheres,
To soothe their goddess?

O majestic Night?
Nature's great ancestor? day's elder-born!
And fated to survive the transient Sun!
By mortals, and immortals, seen with awe!
A starry crown thy raven brow adorns,

An azure zone, thy waist; clouds, in Heaven's loom
Wrought through varieties of shape and shade,
In ample folds of drapery divine,

Thy flowing mantle form; and Heaven throughout,
Voluminously pour thy pompous train.
Thy gloomy grandeurs (Nature's most august,
Inspiring aspect!) claim a grateful verse;
And, like a sable curtain starr'd with gold,
Drawn o'er my labors past, shall close the scene.
And what, O man! so worthy to be sung?
What more prepares us for the songs of Heaven?
Creation, of archangels is the theme!
What, to be sung, so needful? What so well
Celestial joys prepare us to sustain ?
The soul of man, his face design'd to see
Who gave these wonders to be seen by man,
Has here a previous scene of objects great,
On which to dwell; to stretch to that expanse
Of thought, to rise to that exalted height
Of admiration, to contract that awe,

And give her whole capacities that strength,
Which best may qualify for final joy.
The more our spirits are enlarg'd on Earth,
The deeper draught shall they receive of Heaven.
Heaven's King! whose face unveil'd consum
mates bliss ;

Redundant bliss! which fills that mighty void,
The whole creation leaves in human hearts!
Thou, who didst touch the lip of Jesse's son,
Rapt in sweet contemplation of these fires,
And set his harp in concert with the spheres;
While of thy works material the supreme
I dare attempt, assist my daring song;
Loose me from Earth's inclosure, from the Sun's
Contracted circle set my heart at large;
Eliminate my spirit, give it range
Through provinces of thought yet unexplor'd;
Teach me by this stupendous scaffolding,
Creation's golden steps, to climb to thee.
Teach me with art great Nature to control.
And spread a lustre o'er the shades of night.
Feel I thy kind assent? and shall the Sun
Be seen at midnight, rising in my song?

Lorenzo! come, and warm thee: thou, whose heart.
Whose little heart, is moor'd within a nook
Of this obscure terrestrial, anchor weigh.