Life we think long and short; death seek and shun.
Oh the dark days of vanity! while
Here, how tasteless! and how terrible when gone!
Gone? they ne'er go; when past, they haunt us still:
The spirit walks of every day deceased,
And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns.
Nor death nor life delight us. If time past,
And time possessed, both pain us, what can please?
That which the Deity to please ordained,
Time used. The man who consecrates his hours
By vigorous effort, and an honest aim,
At once he draws the sting of life and death:
He walks with nature, and her paths are peace.
A weight, let fall
From a fix'd star in ages can it reach
This distant earth? Say, then, Lorenzo! where,
Where ends this mighty building? where begin
The suburbs of creation? where the wall
Whose battlements look o'er into the vale
Of non-existence-nothing's strange abode!
Say, at what point of space Jehovah dropp'd
His slacken'd line, and laid his balance by ;
Weigh'd worlds, and measured infinite no more,
Where rears his terminating pillar high
Its extra-mundane head? and says, to gods,
In characters illustrious as the sun-
"I stand, the plan's proud period; I pronounce
The work accomplish'd, the creation closed:
Shout all ye gods! nor shout, ye gods alone;
Of all that lives, or if devoid of life,
That rests or rolls, ye heights and depths resound!
Resound! resound! ye depths and heights resound!”
Hard are those questions!-Answer harder still.
Throw empires, and be blameless: moments seize;
Heaven's on their wing: a moment we may wish,
When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand still,
Bid him drive back his car and re-impart
The period past, re-give the given hour.
Lorenzo! more than miracles we want.
Lorenzo! O for yesterdays to come!
THE MAN WHOSE THOUGHTS ARE NOT OF THIS
WORLD.
SOME angel guide my pencil, while I draw,
What nothing less than angel can exceed,
A man on earth devoted to the skies;
Like ships in seas, while in, above the world.
With aspect mild, and elevated eye,
Behold him seated on a mount serene,
Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm;
All the black cares and tumults of this life,
Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet,
Excite his pity, not impair his peace.
Earth's genuine sons, the sceptred and the slave,
A mingled mob! a wandering herd! he sees,
Bewildered in the vale; in all unlike!
His full reverse in all! what higher praise?
What stronger demonstration of the right?
The present all their care, the future his.
When public welfare calls, or private want,
They give to Fame; his bounty he conceals.
Their virtues varnish Nature, his exalt.
Mankind's esteem they court, and he his own.
Theirs the wild chase of false felicities;
His the composed possession of the true.
Alike throughout is his consistent peace,
All of one colour, and an even thread;
While party-coloured shreds of happiness,
With hideous gaps between, patch up for them
A madman's robe; each puff of fortune blows
The tatters by, and shows their nakedness.
He sees with other eyes than theirs: where they
Behold a sun, he spies a Deity.
What makes them only smile, makes him adore
PROCRASTINATION.
BE wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead ;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed 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 vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger 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 selves applaud;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's vails;
That lodged in Fate's to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone.
'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool,
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage. When young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.
THE EMPTINESS OF RICHES.
CAN gold calm passion, or make reason shine?
Can we dig peace or wisdom from the mine?
Wisdom to gold prefer, for 'tis much less
To make our fortune than our happiness:
That happiness which great ones often see,
With rage and wonder, in a low degree,
Themselves unblessed. The poor are only poor.
But what are they who droop amid their store!
Nothing is meaner than a wretch of state.
The happy only are the truly great.
Peasants enjoy like appetites with kings,
And those best satisfied with cheapest things.
Could both our Indies buy but one new sense,
Our envy would be due to large expense;
Since not, those pomps which to the great belong,
Are but poor arts to mark them from the throng.
See how they beg an alms of Flattery:
They languish! oh, support them with a lie!
A decent competence we fully taste;
It strikes our sense, and gives a constant feast;
More we perceive by dint of thought alone;
The rich must labour to possess their own.
To feel their great abundance, and request
Their humble friends to help them to be blest;
To see their treasure, hear their glory told,
And aid the wretched impotence of gold.
But some, great souls! and touched with warmth divine,
Give gold a price, and teach its beams to shine;
All hoarded treasures they repute a load,
Nor think their wealth their own, till well bestowed.
Grand reservoirs of public happiness,
Through secret streams diffusively they bless,
And, while their bounties glide, concealed from view,
Relieve our wants, and spare our blushes too.
ADDRESS TO THE DEITY.
O THOU? Whose balance does the mountains weigh;
Whose will the wild tumultuous seas obey;
Whose breath can turn those wat❜ry worlds to flame,
That flame to tempest, and that tempest tame;
Earth's meanest son, all trembling, prostrate falls,
And on thy never-ceasing goodness calls.
Oh! give the winds all past offence to sweep,
To scatter wide, or bury in the deep.
Thy power, my weakness, may I ever see,
And wholly dedicate my soul to thee.
Reign o'er my will; my passions ebb and flow
At thy command, nor human motive know!
If anger boil, let anger be my praise,
And sin the graceful indignation raise.
My love be warm to succour the distressed,
And lift the burden from the soul oppressed.
Oh! may my understanding ever read
This glorious volume which thy wisdom made!
May sea and land, and earth and heaven be joined, To bring th' eternal Author to my mind!
When oceans roar, or awful thunders roll,
May thoughts of thy dread vengeance shake my soul!
When earth's in bloom, or planets proudly shine,
Adore, my heart, the majesty divine.
Grant I may ever, at the morning ray,
Open with prayer the consecrated day;
Tune thy great praise, and bid my soul arise,
And with the mounting sun ascend the skies :
As that advances, let my zeal improve,
And glow with ardour of consummate love;
Nor cease at eve, but with the setting sun
My endless worship shall be still begun.
And, oh, permit the gloom of solemn night,
To sacred thought may forcibly invite.
When this world's shut, and awful planets rise,
Call on our minds, and raise them to the skies;
Compose our souls with a less dazzling sight,
And show all nature in a milder light:
How every boist'rous thought in calm subsides!
How the smoothed spirit into goodness glides!
Oh, how divine! to tread the milky-way
To the bright palace of the Lord of day;
His court admire, or for his favour sue,
Or leagues of friendship with his saints renew:
Pleased to look down, and see the world asleep;
While I long vigils to its Founder keep.
FROM LOVE OF FAME.
THE love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows, in ev'ry heart:
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.
O'er globes and sceptres, now on thrones it swells;
Now trims the midnight lamp in college-cells.
'Tis Tory, Whig; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads,
Harangues in senates, squeaks in masquerades.
Here, to Steele's humour makes a bold pretence;
There, bolder, aims at Pulteney's eloquence.
It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head,
And heaps the plain with mountains of the dead:
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