THOMAS PARNELL, a moral and religious poet, was born in Dublin in 1679. At thirteen he was admitted into Trinity College, where in 1700 he became M.A. He often visited England, and was the friend of Pope and Swift. He obtained the Archdeaconry of Clogher in his twenty-sixth year; and he died at Chester, on his way home to Ireland, in 1717.
"The compass of Parnell's poetry," says Mr. Campbell," is not extensive, but it is peculiarly delightful. It is like a flower that has been trained and planted by the skill of the gardener, but which preserves, in its cultured state, the natural fragrance of its wilder air."
A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH.
By the blue taper's trembling light
No more I waste the wakeful night,
Intent with endless view to pore
The schoolmen and the sages o'er:/
Their books from wisdom widely stray,
Or point at least the longest way.
I'll seek a readier path, and go
Where wisdom's surely taught below.
How deep yon azure dyes the sky!
Where orbs of gold unnumbered lie,
While through their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide.
The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is smooth, and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.
The grounds which on the right aspire
In dimness from the view retire;
The left presents a place of graves,
Whose wall the silent water laves;
That steeple guides thy doubtful sight
Among the livid gleams of night.
There pass with melancholy state
By all the solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as softly sad you tread
Above the venerable dead,
"Time was, like thee, they life possessed,
And time shall be that thou shalt rest!"
Those graves with bending osier bound, That nameless heave the crumbled ground, Quick to the glancing thought disclose Where Toil and Poverty repose.
The flat smooth stones that bear a name,
The chisel's slender help to fame,
(Which ere our set of friends decay
Their frequent steps may wear away),
A Middle Race of mortals own,
Men, half ambitious, all unknown.
The marble tombs that rise on high,
Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,
Whose pillars swell with sculptured stones,
Urns, angels, epithets, and bones;
These (all the poor remains of state!)
Adorn the Rich, or praise the Great,
Who while on earth in fame they live,
Are senseless of the fame they give.
Ha! while I gaze pale Cynthia fades,
The bursting earth unveils the shades;
All slow, and wan, and wrapped with shrouds, They rise in visionary clouds,
And all with sober accent cry,
"Think, mortal, what it is to die."
Now from yon black and funeral yew, That bathes the charnel-house with dew,
Methinks I hear a voice begin,
(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din, Ye tolling clocks, no time resound
O'er the long lake and midnight ground,)
It sends a peal of hollow groans,
Thus speaking from among the bones:
"When men my scythe and darts supply, How great a king of fears am I!
They view me like the last of things:
They make, and then they dread my stings.
Fools! if you less provoked your fears,
No more my spectre form appears.
Death's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God;
A port of calms, a state of ease,
From the rough rage of swelling seas."
Why then thy flowing sable stoles,
Deep pendent cypress, mourning poles,
Loose scarfs to fall athwart thy weeds,
Long palls, drawn hearses, covered steeds,
And plumes of black, that, as they tread,
Nod o'er the scutcheons of the dead?
Nor can the parted body know,
Nor wants the soul, these forms of woe.
As men who long in prison dwell,
With lamps that glimmer round the cell,
Whene'er their suffering years are run,
Spring forth to greet the glittering sun:
Such joy, though far transcending sense,
Have pious souls at parting hence.
On earth, and in the body placed,
A few and evil years they waste;
But when their chains are cast aside,
See the glad scene unfolding wide,
Clap the glad wing, and tower away,
And mingle with the blaze of day.
A HYMN TO CONTENTMENT.
LOVELY, lasting peace of mind!
Sweet delight of human kind!
Heaven-born and bred on high,
To crown the favourites of the sky,
With more of happiness below
Than victors in a triumph know;
Whither, oh! whither art thou fled,
To lay thy meek contented head?
What happy region dost thou please
To make the seat of calms and ease?
Ambition searches all its sphere
Of pomp and state, to meet thee there;
Increasing avarice would find
Thy presence in its gold enshrined;
The bold adventurer ploughs his way,
Through rocks amidst the foaming sea,
To gain thy love, and then perceives
Thou wert not in the rocks and waves;
The silent heart which grief assails,
Treads soft and lonesome .o'er the vales,
Sees daisies open, rivers run,
And seeks (as I have vainly done,)
Amusing thought; but learns to know,
That solitude's the nurse of woe.
No real happiness is found
In trailing purple o'er the ground;
Or in a soul exalted high,
To range the circuit of the sky;
Converse with stars above, and know
All nature in its forms below:
The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,
And doubts at last for knowledge rise.
Lovely, lasting peace, appear!
This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden blessed,
And man contains it in his breast.
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