Melpomene; or, The Melancholy.
-Reason thus with life;
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing,
That none but fools would weep.
SHAKSP. Measure for Measure.
OFFSPRING of folly and of noise,
Fantastic train of airy joys,
Cease, cease your vain delusive lore,
And tempt my serious thoughts no more,
Ye horrid forms, ye gloomy throng,
Who hear the bird of midnight's song,
Thou too, Despair, pale spectre, come
From the self-murderer's haunted tomb,
While sad Melpomene relates
How we're afflicted by the fates.
What's all this wish'd-for empire, life?
A scene of misery, care, and strife;
And make the most, that's all we have
Betwixt the cradle and the grave.
The being is not worth the charge:
Behold the estimate at large.
Our youth is silly, idle, vain;
Our age is full of care and pain;
From wealth accrues anxiety;
Contempt and want from poverty;
What trouble business has in store!
How idleness fatigues us more;
To reason the' ignorant are blind;
The learned's eyes are too refined;
Each wit deems every wit his foe,
Each fool is naturally so;
And every rank and every station
Meet justly with disapprobation.
Say, man, is this the boasted state,
Where all is pleasant, all is great?
Alas! another face you'll see,
Take off the veil of vanity.
Is aught in pleasure, aught in power,
Has wisdom any gift in store,
To make thee stay a single hour?
Tell me, ye youthful, who approve
The' intoxicating sweets of love,
What endless nameless throbs arise,
What heartfelt anguish and what sighs,
When jealousy has gnaw'd the root
Whence love's united branches shoot?
Or grant that Hymen lights his torch,
To lead you to the nuptial porch,
Behold! the long'd-for rapture o'er!
Desire begins to lose its power,
Then cold indifference takes place,
Fruition alters quite the case;
And what before was ecstasy,
Is scarcely now civility,
Your children bring a second care;
If childless then you want an heir;
So that in both alike you find
The same perplexity of mind.
Do power or wealth more comfort own?
Behold yon pageant on a throne,
Where silken swarms of flattery
Obsequious wait his asking eye.
But view within his tortured breast,
No more the downy seat of rest,
Suspicion casts her poison'd dart,
And guilt, that scorpion, stings his heart.
Will knowledge give us happiness?
In that, alas! we know there's less,
For every pang of mental woe
Springs from the faculty to know.
Hark! at the death-betokening knell
Of yonder doleful passing bell,
Perhaps a friend, a father's dead,
Or the loved partner of thy bed!
Perhaps thy only son lies there,
Breathless upon the sable bier!
Say, what can ease the present grief,
Can former joys afford relief?
Those former joys remember'd still,
The more augment the recent ill,
And where you seek for comfort, gain
Additional increase of pain.
What woes from mortal ills accrue!
And what from natural ensue!
Disease and casualty attend
Our footsteps to the journey's end;
The cold catarrh, the gout and stone,
The dropsy, jaundice, join'd in one,
The raging fever's inward heat,
The pale consumption's fatal sweat,
And thousand more distempers roam,
To drag us to the' eternal home.
And when solution sets us free
From prison of mortality,
The soul dilated joins in air,
To go, alas! we know not where.
And the poor body will become
A clod within a lonely tomb.
Reflection sad! such bodies must
Return, and mingle with the dust!
But neither sense nor beauty have
Defensive charms against the grave,
Nor virtue's shield, nor wisdom's lore,
Nor true religion's sacred power;
For as that charnel's earth you see,
E'en, my Eudocia, you will be.
Calliope; or, The Cheerful.
Inter cuncta leges, et percuntabere doctos,
Qua ratione queas traducere leniter ævum.
GRIM Superstition, hence away
To native night, and leave the day,
Nor let thy hellish brood appear,
Begot on Ignorance and Fear,
Come, gentle Mirth, and Gaiety,
Sweet daughter of Society;
Whilst fair Calliope pursues
Flights worthy of the cheerful Muse.
O life, thou great essential good,
Where every blessing's understood!
Where Plenty, Freedom, Pleasure meet
To make each fleeting moment sweet;
Where moral Love and Innocence
The balm of sweet Content dispense;
Where Peace expands her turtle wings,
And Hope a constant requiem sings;
With easy thought my breast inspire,
To thee I tune the sprightly lyre.
From heaven this emanation flows,
To heaven again the wanderer goes:
And whilst employ'd beneath on earth,
Its boon attendants, Ease and Mirth,
Join'd with the social Virtues three,
And their calm parent Charity,
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