Our utmost strength, when down, to rise again;
And not to yield, though beaten, all our praise.
'Tis vain to feek in men for more than man.
Though proud in promife, big in previous thought,
Experience damps our triumph. I, who late,
Emerging from the fhadows of the grave,
Where grief detain'd me prifoner, mounting high,
Threw wide the gates of everlasting day,
And call'd mankind to glory, shook off pain,
Mortality fhook off, in æther pure,
And ftruck the ftars; now feel my fpirits fail;
They drop me from the zenith; down I rush,
Like him whom fable fledg'd with waxen wings,
In forrow drown'd-but not in forrow loft.
How wretched is the man who never mourn'd!
I dive for precious pearl in forrow's stream :
Not fo the thoughtless man that only grieves :
Takes all the torment, and rejects the gain
(Ineftimable gain !) and gives heaven leave
To make him but more wretched, not more wife. 250
If wifdom is our leffon (and what elfe
Ennobles man? what elfe have angels learnt?)
Grief! more proficients in thy fchool are made,
Than genius, or proud learning, e'er could boast.
Voracious learning, often over-fed,
Digests not into fenfe her motley meal.
This book-cafe, with dark booty almost burst,
This forager on others' wifdom, leaves
Her native farm, her reason, quite untill'd.
With mixt manure the furfeits the rank foil,
Dung'd, but not dreft; and rich to beggary.
A pomp untameable of weeds prevails.
Her fervant's wealth, incumber'd wisdom mourns.
And what fays genius? "Let the dull be wife.”
Genius, too hard for right, can prove it wrong;
And loves to boast, where blush men less infpir'd.
It pleads exemption from the laws of sense;
Confiders reafon as a leveler;
And scorns to share a bleffing with the croud.
That wife it could be, thinks an ample claim
To glory, and to pleasure gives the rest.
Craffus but fleeps, Ardelio is undone.
Wisdom lefs fhudders at a fool, than wit.
But wisdom fmiles, when humbled mortals weep. When forrow wounds the breaft, as ploughs the glebe, 275 And hearts obdurate feel her foftening shower;
Her feed celeftial, then, glad wisdom lows;
Her golden harvest triumphs in the foil.
If fo, Narciffa! welcome my Relapse;
I'll raise a tax on my calamity,
And reap rich compenfation from my pain.
I'll range the plenteous intellectual field;
And gather every thought of fovereign power
To chafe the moral maladies of man;
Thoughts, which may bear tranfplanting to the skies, 285
Though natives of this coarse penurious foil;
Nor wholly wither there, where feraphs fing,
Refin'd, exalted, not annull'd, in heaven.
Reason, the fun that gives them birth, the fame
In either clime, though more illufurious there.
These choicely cull'd, and elegantly rang'd,
Shall form a garland for Narciffa's tomb;
And, peradventure, of no fading flowers.
Say on what themes fhall puzzled choice defcend?
"Th' importance of contemplating the tomb;
"Why men decline it; fuicide's foul birth;
“The various kind of grief; the faults of age;
"And death's dread character-invite my fong."
And, first th' importance of our end furvey'd.
Friends counfel quick difmiffion of our grief:
Miftaken kindnefs! our hearts heal too foon.
Are they more kind than be, who ftruck the blow?
Who bid it do his errand in our hearts,
And banish peace, till nobler guefis arrive,
And bring it back, a true and endless peace?
Calamities are friends: As glaring day
Of thefe unnumber'd luftres robs our fight;
Profperity puts out unnumber'd thoughts
Of import high, and light divine, to man.
The man how bleft, who, fick of gaudy fcenes, 310
(Scenes apt to thrust between Us and Ourselves!)
Is led by choice to take his favourite walk,
Beneath death's gloomy, filent, cypress shades,
Unpierc'd by vanity's fantaític ray;
To read his monuments, to weigh his duft,
Vifit his vaults, and dwell among the tombs!
Lorenzo! read with me Narcifla's ftone;
(Narcilla was thy favourite) let us read
Her moral stone; few doctors preach fo well;
Few orators fo tenderly can touch
H 3
The feeling heart. What pathos in the date!
Apt words can ftrike: and yet in them we fee
Faint images of what we, here, enjoy.
What cause have we to build on length of life?
Temptations feize, when fear is laid asleep;
And ill foreboded is our strongest guard.
See from her tomb, as from an humbler fhrine,
Truth, radiant goddefs! fallies on my foul,
And puts delufion's dusky train to' flight;
Difpels the mifts our fultry paffions raife,
From objects low, terreftrial, and obfcene;
And fhews the real eftimate of things;
Which no man, unafflicted, ever faw;
Pulls off the veil from virtue's rifing charms;
Detects temptation in a thousand lyes.
Truth bids me look on men, as autumn leaves,
And all they bleed for, as the fummer's duft,
Driven by the whirlwind: lighted by her beams,
I widen my horizon, gain new powers,
See things invifible, feel things remote,
Am prefent with futurities; think nought
To man fo foreign, as the joys poffeft;
Nought fo much his, as thofe beyond the grave.
No folly keeps its colour in her fight;
Pale worldly wisdom loses all her charms;
In pompous promife, from her schemes profound,
If future fate the plans, 'tis all in leaves,
Like Sibyl, unfubftantial, fleeting blifs!
At the first blaft it vanishes in air.
Not fo, celeftial; wouldft thou know, Lorenzo!
How differ worldly wisdom, and divine?
Juft as the waning, and the waxing moon,
More empty worldly wisdom every day;
And every day more fair her rival fhines.
When later, there 's lefs time to play the fool.
Soon our whole term for wifdom is expir'd
(Thou know'ft fhe calls no council in the grave):
And everlasting fool is writ in fire,
Or real wisdom wafts us to the skies.
As worldly schemes refemble Sibyls' leaves,
The good man's days to Sibyls' books compare,
(In antient ftory read, thou know'ft the tale)
In price ftill rifing, as in number lefs,
Ineftimable quite his final hour.
For That who thrones can offer, offer thrones;
Infolvent worlds the purchase cannot pay.
"Oh let me die his death!" all nature cries.
"Then live his life."-All nature faulters there.
Our great phyfician daily to confult,
To commune with the grave, our only cure.
What grave prefcribes the beft ?-A friend's; and yet, From a friend's grave how foon we difengage!
Ev'n to the deareft, as his marble, cold.
Why are friends ravisht from us? 'Tis to bind,
By foft affection's tyes, on human hearts,
The thought of death, which reafon, too fupine,
Or mifemploy'd, fo rarely faftens there. -
Nor reafon, nor affection, no, nor both
Combin'd, can break the witchcrafts of the world.
Behold, th' inexorable hour at hand!
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