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We wear the chains of pleasure and of pride.
These share the man; and these distract him too;
Draw different ways, and clash in their commands.
Pride, like an eagle, builds among the stars,
But pleasure, lark-like, nests upon the ground.
Joys shar'd by brute-creation, pride resents;
Pleasure embraces; man would both enjoy,
And both at once: a point how hard to gain!
But, what can't wit, when stung by strong desire?
Wit dares attempt this arduous enterprise.
Since joy of sense can't rise to reason's taste;
In subtle sophistry's laborious forge,
Wit hammers out a reason new, that stoops
To sordid scenes, and meets them with applause.
Wit calls the graces the chaste zone to loose;
Nor less than a plump god to fill the bowl:
A thousand phantoms, and a thousand spells,
A thousand opiates scatters, to delude,
To fascinate, inebriate, lay asleep,

And the fool'd mind delightfully confound. [more;
Thus that which shock'd the judgment, shocks no
That which gave pride offence, no more offends.
Pleasure and pride, by nature mortal foes,
At war eternal, which in man shall reign,
By wit's address, patch up a fatal peace,
And hand in hand lead on the rank debauch,
From rank, refin'd to delicate and gay.
Art, cursed art! wipes off th' indebted blush
From Nature's cheek, and bronzes every shame.
Man smiles in ruin, glories in his guilt,
And infamy stands candidate for praise.

All writ by man in favor of the soul,
The sensual ethics far, in bulk, transcend.
The flowers of eloquence, profusely pour'd
O'er spotted vice, fill half the letter'd world.
Can powers of genius exorcise their page,
And consecrate enormities with song?
But let not these inexpiable strains
Condemn the Muse that knows her dignity;
Nor meanly stops at time, but holds the world
As 'tis, in Nature's ample field, a point,
A point in her esteem; from whence to start,
And run the round of universal space,
To visit being universal there,

And being's Source, that utmost flight of mind!
Yet, spite of this so vast circumference,

Well knows, but what is moral, nought is great.
Sing syrens only? Do not angels sing?
There is in poesy a decent pride,

And, feeling, give assent; and their assent
Is ample recompense; is more than praise.
But chiefly thine, O Litchfield! nor mistake;
Think not unintroduc'd I force my way;
Narcissa, not unknown, not unallied,
By virtue, or by blood, illustrious youth!
To thee, from blooming amaranthine bowers,
Where all the language harmony, descends
Uncall'd, and asks admittance for the Muse:
A Muse that will not pain thee with thy praise;
Thy praise she drops, by nobler still inspir'd.

O thou! Blest Spirit! whether the supreme,
Great antemundane Father! in whose breast
Embryo creation, unborn being, dwelt,
And all its various revolutions roll'd
Present, though future; prior to themselves;
Whose breath can blow it into nought again;
Or, from his throne some delegated power,
Who, studious of our peace, dost turn the thought
From vain and vile, to solid and sublime!
Unseen thou lead'st me to delicious draughts
Of inspiration, from a purer stream,
And fuller of the god, than that which burst
From fam'd Castalia: nor is yet allay'd
My sacred thirst; though long my soul has rang'd
Through pleasing paths of moral and divine,
By thee sustain'd, and lighted by the stars.

By them best lighted are the paths of thought;
Nights are their days, their most illumin'd hours.
By day, the soul, o'erborne by life's career,
Stunn'd by the din, and giddy with the glare,
Reels far from reason, jostled by the throng.
By day the soul is passive, all her thoughts
Impos'd, precarious, broken ere mature.
By night, from objects free, from passion cool.
Thoughts uncontroll'd, and unimpress'd, the births
Of pure election, arbitrary range,

Not to the limits of one world confin'd;
But from ethereal travels light on Earth,
As voyagers drop anchor, for repose.

Let Indians, and the gay, like Indians, fond
|Of feather'd fopperies, the Sun adore:
Darkness has more divinity for me;
It strikes thought inward; it drives back the soul
To settle on herself our point supreme!
There lies our theatre! there sits our judge.
Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene;
"Tis the kind hand of Providence stretch'd out
"Twixt man and vanity; 'tis reason's reign,

Which well becomes her when she speaks to prose, And virtue's too; these tutelary shades

Her younger sister; haply, not more wise.

Think'st thou, Lorenzo! to find pastimes here?

No guilty passion blown into a flame,
No foible flatter'd, dignity disgrac'd,
No fairy field of fiction, all on flower,
No rainbow colors, here, or silken tale:
But solemn counsels, images of awe,
Truths, which eternity lets fall on man
With double weight, through these revolving spheres,
This death-deep silence, and incumbent shade:
Thoughts, such as shall revisit your last hour;
Visit uncall'd, and live when life expires;
And thy dark pencil, midnight! darker still
In melancholy dipt, embrowns the whole.

Yet this, even this, my laughter-loving friends!
Lorenzo! and thy brothers of the smile!
If, what imports you most, can most engage,
Shall steal your ear, and chain you to my song.
Or if you fail me, know, the wise shall taste
The truths I sing; the truths I sing shall feel;

Are man's asylum from the tainted throng.
Night is the good man's friend, and guardian too;
It no less rescues virtue, than inspires.

Virtue, for ever frail, as fair, below,
Her tender nature suffers in the crowd,
Nor touches on the world, without a stain:
The world's infectious; few bring back at eve,
Immaculate, the manners of the morn.
Something we thought, is blotted! we resolt'd,
Is shaken; we renounc'd, returns again.
Each salutation may slide in a sin
Unthought before, or fix a former flaw.
Nor is it strange: light, motion, concourse, noise.
All, scatter us abroad; though outward bound,
Neglectful of our home affairs, flies off
In fume and dissipation, quits her charge,
And leaves the breast unguarded to the foe.

Present example gets within our guard.
And acts with double force, by few repell'd.
Ambition fires ambition; love of gain

Strikes, like a pestilence, from breast to breast;
Riot, pride, perfidy, blue vapors breathe;
And inhumanity is caught from man,
From smiling man. A slight, a single glance,
And shot at random, often has brought home
A sudden fever to the throbbing heart,
Of envy, rancor, or impure desire.

We see, we hear, with peril; safety dwells
Remote from multitude; the world's a school
Of wrong, and what proficients swarm around!
We must or imitate; or disapprove;
Must list as their accomplices, or foes;

That stains our innocence; this wounds our peace.
From Nature's birth, hence, wisdom has been smit
With sweet recess, and languish'd for the shade.

This sacred shade, and solitude, what is it?
"Tis the felt presence of the Deity.
Few are the faults we flatter when alone,
Vice sinks in her allurements, is ungilt:
And looks, like other objects, black by night.
By night an atheist half-believes a God.

Night is fair virtue's immemorial friend;
The conscious Moon, through every distant age,
Has held a lamp to wisdom, and let fall,
On contemplation's eye, her purging ray.
The fam'd Athenian, he who woo'd from Heaven
Philosophy the fair, to dwell with men,
And form their manners, not inflame their pride,
While o'er his head, as fearful to molest
His laboring mind, the stars in silence slide,
And seem all gazing on their future guest,
See him soliciting his ardent suit

In private audience: all the livelong night,
Rigid in thought, and motionless, he stands;
Nor quits his theme, or posture, till the Sun
(Rude drunkard rising rosy from the main!)
Disturbs his nobler intellectual beam,
And gives him to the tumult of the world.
Hail, precious moments! stol'n from the black waste
Of murder'd time! Auspicious midnight! hail!
The world excluded, every passion husht,
And open'd a calm intercourse with Heaven,
Here the soul sits in council; ponders past,
Predestines future action; sees, not feels,
Tumultuous life, and reasons with the storm:
All her lies answers, and thinks down her charms.
What awful joy! what mental liberty!

I am not pent in darkness; rather say,
(If not too bold,) in darkness I'm embower'd.
Delightful gloom! the clustering thoughts around
Spontaneous rise, and blossom in the shade;
But droop by day, and sicken in the sun.

The blush of weakness to the bane of woe.
The noblest spirit, fighting her hard fate,
In this damp, dusty region, charg'd with storms,
But feebly flutters, yet untaught to fly;
Or, flying, short her flight, and sure her fall.
Our utmost strength, when down, to rise again;
And not to yield, though beaten, all our praise.

"Tis vain to seek in men for more than man.
Though proud in promise, big in previous thought,
Experience damps our triumph. I who late,
Emerging from the shadows of the grave,
Where grief detain'd me prisoner, mounting high,
Threw wide the gates of everlasting day,
And call'd mankind to glory, shook off pain,
Mortality shook off, in ether pure,

And struck the stars; now feel my spirits fail;
They drop me from the zenith; down I rush,
Like him whom fable fledg'd with waxen wings,
In sorrow drown'd-but not in sorrow lost.
How wretched is the man who never mourn'd!
I dive for precious pearl in sorrow's stream:
Not so the thoughtless man that only grieves;
Takes all the torment, and rejects the gain,
(Inestimable gain!) and gives Heaven leave
To make him but more wretched, not more wise.
If wisdom is our lesson (and what else
Ennobles man? what else have angels learnt ?)
Grief! more proficients in thy school are made,
Than genius, or proud learning, e'er could boast.
Voracious learning, often over-fed,

Digests not into sense her motley meal.
This book-case, with dark booty almost burst,
This forager on others' wisdom, leaves
Her native farm, her reason, quite untill'd.
With mixt manure she surfeits the rank soil,
Dung'd, but not dress'd; and rich to beggary.
A pomp untamable of weeds prevails.
Her servant's wealth, encumber'd wisdom mourns.

And what says genius? "Let the dull be wise.".
Genius, too hard for right, can prove it wrong;
And loves to boast, where blush men less inspir'd.
It pleads exemption from the laws of sense;
Considers reason as a leveller;

And scorns to share a blessing with the crowd.
That wise it could be, thinks an ample claim
To glory, and to pleasure gives the rest.
Crassus but sleeps, Ardelio is undone.
Wisdom less shudders at a fool, than wit.

But wisdom smiles, when humbled mortals weep. When sorrow wounds the breast, as plows the

glebe,

And hearts obdurate feel her softening shower;

Thought borrows light elsewhere; from that first fire, Her seed celestial, then, glad wisdom sows;

Fountain of animation! whence descends

Urania, my celestial guest! who deigns
Nightly to visit me, so mean; and now,
Conscious how needful discipline to man,

From pleasing dalliance with the charms of night
My wandering thought recalls, to what excites

Far other beat of heart! Narcissa's tomb!

Or is it feeble Nature calls me back,
And breaks my spirit into grief again?
Is it a Stygian vapor in my blood?

A cold, slow puddle, creeping through my veins ?
Or is it thus with all men?-Thus with all.
What are we? How unequal! Now we soar,
And now we sink: to be the same, transcends
Our present prowess. Dearly pays the soul
For lodging ill; too dearly rents her clay.
Reason, a baffled counsellor! but adds

Her golden harvest triumphs in the soil.
If so, Narcissa! welcome my Relapse;
I'll raise a tax on my calamity,

And reap rich compensation from my pain.
I'll range the plenteous intellectual field;
And gather every thought of sovereign power
To chase the moral maladies of man;
Thoughts, which may bear transplanting to the skies,
Though natives of this coarse penurious soil:
Nor wholly wither there, where seraphs sing,
Refin'd, exalted, not annull'd, in Heaven.
Reason, the sun that gives them birth, the same
In either clime, though more illustrious there.
These choicely cull'd, and elegantly rang'd,
Shall form a garland for Narcissa's tomb;
And, peradventure, of no fading flowers.

Say on what themes shall puzzled choice descond?

"Th' importance of contemplating the tomb;
Why men decline it; suicide's foul birth;
The various kind of grief; the faults of age;
And death's dread character-invite my song."

And, first, th' importance of our end survey'd.
Friends counsel quick dismission of our grief:
Mistaken kindness! our hearts heal too soon.
Are they more kind than he, who struck the blow?
Who bid it do his errand in our hearts,
And banish peace, till nobler guests arrive,
And bring it back, a true and endless peace?
Calamities are friends: as glaring day

Of these unnumber'd lustres robs our sight;
Prosperity puts out unnumber'd thoughts
Of import high, and light divine, to man.

The man how blest, who, sick of gaudy scenes,
(Scenes apt to thrust between us and ourselves!)
Is led by choice to take his favorite walk,
Beneath death's gloomy, silent, cypress shades,
Unpierc'd by vanity's fantastic ray;

To read his monuments, to weigh his dust,
Visit his vaults, and dwell among the tombs !
Lorenzo! read with me Narcissa's stone;
(Narcissa was thy favorite!) let us read
Her moral stone! few doctors preach so well;
Few orators so tenderly can touch
The feeling heart. What pathos in the date!
Apt words can strike: and yet in them we see
Faint images of what we, here, enjoy.
What cause have we to build on length of life?
Temptations seize, when fear is laid asleep;
And ill foreboded is our strongest guard.

See from her tomb, as from an humbler shrine,
Truth, radiant goddess! sallies on my soul,
And puts Delusion's dusky train to flight;
Dispels the mists our sultry passions raise,
From objects low, terrestrial, and obscene:
And shows the real estimate of things;
Which no man, unafflicted, ever saw;
Pulls off the veil from Virtue's rising charms;
Detects Temptation in a thousand lies.
Truth bids me look on men, as autumn leaves,
And all they bleed for, as the summer's dust,
Driven by the whirlwind: lighted by her beams,
I widen my horizon, gain new powers,
See things invisible, feel things remote,
Am present with futurities; think nought
To man so foreign, as the joys possest;
Nought so much his, as those beyond the grave.
No folly keeps its color in her sight;
Pale worldly wisdom loses all her charms;
In pompous promise, from her schemes profound,
If future fate she plans, 'tis all in leaves,
Like Sibyl, unsubstantial, fleeting bliss!
At the first blast it vanishes in air.
Not so, celestial: wouldst thou know, Lorenzo!
How differ worldly wisdom, and divine?
Just as the waning, and the waxing Moon.
More empty worldly wisdom every day;
And every day more fair her rival shines.
When later, there's less time to play the fool.
Soon our whole term for wisdom is expir'd:
(Thou know'st she calls no council in the grave :)
And everlasting fool is writ in fire,

Or real wisdom wafts us to the skies.

As worldly schemes resemble Sibyls' leaves, The good man's days to Sibyls' books compare, (In ancient story read, thou know'st the tale,) In price still rising, as in number less, Inestimable quite his final hour.

For that who thrones can offer, offer thrones;
Insolvent worlds the purchase cannot pay.
"Oh let me die his death!" all Nature cries.
Then live his life."-All Nature falters there.
Our great physician daily to consult,
To commune with the grave, our only cure.
What grave prescribes the best ?—A friend's;
and yet,

From a friend's grave how soon we disengage!
E'en to the dearest, as his marble, cold.
Why are friends ravisht from us? "Tis to bind,
By soft affection's ties, on human hearts,
The thought of death, which reason, too supine,
Or misemploy'd, so rarely fastens there,
Nor reason, nor affection, no, nor both
Combin'd, can break the witcherafts of the world
Behold, th' inexorable hour at hand!
Behold, th' inexorable hour forgot!
And to forget it, the chief aim of life,
Though well to ponder it, is life's chief end.

Is Death, that ever-threatening, ne'er remote,
That all-important, and that only sure,
(Come when he will) an unexpected guest?
Nay, though invited by the loudest calls
Of blind imprudence, unexpected still?
Though numerous messengers are sent before,
To warn his great arrival. What the cause,
The wondrous cause, of this mysterious ill?
All Heaven looks down astonish'd at the sight.

Is it, that life has sown her joys so thick, We can't thrust in a single care between? Is it, that life has such a swarm of cares, The thought of death can't enter for the throng? Is it, that time steals on with downy feet, Nor wakes indulgence from her golden dream! To-day is so like yesterday, it cheats; We take the lying sister for the same. Life glides away, Lorenzo! like a brook; For ever changing, unperceiv'd the change. In the same brook none ever bath'd him twice: To the same life none ever twice awoke. We call the brook the same; the same we think Our life, though still more rapid in its flow; Nor mark the much, irrevocably laps'd, And mingled with the sea. Or shall we say (Retaining still the brook to bear us on) That life is like a vessel on the stream? In life embark'd, we smoothly down the tide Of time descend, but not on time intent; Amus'd, unconscious of the gliding wave; Till on a sudden we perceive a shock; We start, awake, look out; what see we there? Our brittle bark is burst on Charon's shore.

Is this the cause death flies all human thought! Or is it judgment, by the will struck blind, That domineering mistress of the soul! Like him so strong, by Dalilah the fair? Or is it fear turns startled reason back, From looking down a precipice so steep? "Tis dreadful; and the dread is wisely plac'd, By Nature, conscious of the make of man. A dreadful friend it is, a terror kind, A flaming sword to guard the tree of life. By that unaw'd, in life's most smiling hour, The good man would repine; would suffer joys, And burn impatient for his promis'd skies. The bad, on each punctilious pique of pride, Or gloom of humor, would give rage the rein; Bound o'er the barrier, rush into the dark, And mar the schemes of Providence below.

What groan was that, Lorenzo ?-Furies! rise, And drown in your less execrable yell Britannia's shame. There took her gloomy flight, On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul, Blasted from Hell, with horrid lust of death. Thy friend, the brave, the gallant Altamont, So call'd, so thought-And then he fled the field. Less base the fear of death, than fear of life. O Britain, infamous for suicide! An island in thy manners, far disjoin'd From the whole world of rationals beside! In ambient waves plunge thy polluted head, Wash the dire stain, nor shock the continent. But thou be shock'd, while I detect the cause Of self-assault, expose the monster's birth, And bid abhorrence hiss it round the world. Blame not thy clime, nor chide the distant Sun; The Sun is innocent, thy clime absolv'd: Immortal climes kind Nature never made. The cause I sing, in Eden might prevail, And proves, it is thy folly, not thy fate.

The soul of man (let man in homage bow, Who names his soul,) a native of the skies! High-born, and free, her freedom should maintain, Unsold, unmortgag'd for Earth's little bribes. Th' illustrious stranger, in this foreign land, Like strangers, jealous of her dignity, Studious of home, and ardent to return, Of Earth suspicious, Earth's enchanted cup With cool reserve light touching, should indulge On immortality, her godlike taste,

[there.

There take large draughts; make her chief banquet
But some reject this sustenance divine;
To beggarly vile appetites descend;

Ask alms of Earth, for guests that came from Heaven:
Sink into slaves; and sell, for present hire,
Their rich reversion, and (what shares its fate)
Their native freedom, to the prince who sways
This nether world. And when his payments fail,
When his foul basket gorges them no more,
Or their pall'd palates lothe the basket full;
Are instantly, with wild demoniac rage,
For breaking all the chains of Providence,
And bursting their confinement; though fast barr'd
By laws divine and human; guarded strong
With horrors doubled to defend the pass,
The blackest, nature, or dire guilt can raise;
And moated round with fathomless destruction,
Sure to receive, and whelm them in their fall.
Such, Britons! is the cause, to you unknown,
Or worse, o'erlook'd; o'erlook'd by magistrates,
Thus criminals themselves. I grant the deed
Is madness: but the madness of the heart.
And what is that? Our utmost bound of guilt.
A sensual, unreflecting life, is big
With monstrous births, and suicide, to crown
The black infernal brood. The bold to break
Heaven's law supreme, and desperately rush
Through sacred Nature's murder, on their own,
Because they never think of death, they die.
"Tis equally man's duty, glory, gain,
At once to shun, and meditate, his end.
When by the bed of languishment we sit,
(The seat of wisdom! if our choice, not fate,)
Or, o'er our dying friends, in anguish hang,
Wipe the cold dew, or stay the sinking head,
Number their moments, and, in every clock,
Start at the voice of an eternity;
See the dim lamp of life just feebly lift

An agonizing beam, at us to gaze,

Then sink again, and quiver into death,
That most pathetic herald of our own!
How read we such sad scenes? As sent to man
In perfect vengeance? No; in pity sent;
To melt him down, like wax, and then impress,
Indelible, Death's image on his heart;
Bleeding for others, trembling for himself.
We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile.
The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry.
Our quick-returning folly cancels all;
As the tide rushing rases what is writ

In yielding sands, and smoothes the letter'd shore.
Lorenzo! hast thou ever weigh'd a sigh?

Or studied the philosophy of tears?

(A science, yet unlectur'd in our schools!)
Hast thou descended deep into the breast,
And seen their source? If not, descend with me,
And trace these briny rivulets to their springs.
Our funeral tears from different causes rise,
As if from separate cisterns in the soul,
Of various kinds, they flow. From tender hearts,
By soft contagion call'd, some burst at once,
And stream obsequious to the leading eye.
Some ask more time, by curious art distill'd.
Some hearts, in secret hard, unapt to melt,
Struck by the magic of the public eye,
Like Moses' smitten rock, gush out amain.
Some weep to share the fate of the deceas'd,
So high in merit, and to them so dear.

They dwell on praises, which they think they share,
And thus, without a blush, commend themselves.
Some mourn, in proof, that something they could
love:

They weep not to relieve their grief, but show.
Some weep in perfect justice to the dead,
As conscious all their love is in arrear.
Some mischievously weep, not unappriz'd.
Tears, sometimes, aid the conquest of an eye.
With what address the soft Ephesians draw
Their sable net-work o'er entangled hearts!
As seen through crystal, how their roses glow,
While liquid pearl runs trickling down their cheek!
Of hers not prouder Egypt's wanton queen,
Carousing gems, herself dissolv'd in love.
Some weep at death, abstracted from the dead,
And celebrate, like Charles, their own decease.
By kind construction some are deem'd to weep,
Because a decent veil conceals their joy.

Some weep in earnest, and yet weep in vain;
As deep in indiscretion, as in woe.

Passion, blind passion! impotently pours
Tears, that deserve more tears; while reason sleeps
Or gazes like an idiot, unconcern'd;

Nor comprehends the meaning of the storm;
Knows not it speaks to her, and her alone.
Irrationals all sorrow are beneath,
That noble gift! that privilege of man!
From sorrow's pang, the birth of endless joy.
But these are barren of that birth divine:
They weep impetuous, as the summer storm,
And full as short! The cruel grief soon tam'd,
They make a pastime of the stingless tale;
Far as the deep-resounding knell they spread
The dreadful news, and hardly feel it more.
No grain of wisdom pays them for their woe.
Half-round the globe, the tears pump'd up by death
Are spent in watering vanities of life;
In making folly flourish still more fair,
When the sick soul, her wonted stay withdrawn,
Reclines on earth, and sorrows in the dust;

Instead of learning, there, her true support,
Though there thrown down her true support to learn,
Without Heaven's aid, impatient to be blest,
She crawls to the next shrub, or bramble vile,
Though from the stately cedar's arms she fell;
With stale, fors worn embraces, clings anew,
The stranger weds, and blossoms, as before,
In all the fruitless fopperies of life:
Presents her weed, well fancied, at the ball,
And raffles for the death's-head on the ring.

So wept Aurelia, till the destin'd youth
Stepp'd in, with his receipt for making smiles,
And blanching sables into bridal bloom.
So wept Lorenzo fair Clarissa's fate;
Who gave that angel boy, on whom he dotes;
And died to give him, orphan'd in his birth!
Not such, Narcissa, my distress for thee.
I'll make an altar of thy sacred tomb,

To sacrifice to wisdom. What wast thou?

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Young, gay, and fortunate!" Each yields a theme.
I'll dwell on each, to shun thought more severe;
(Heaven knows I labor with severer still!)

I'll dwell on each, and quite exhaust thy death.
A soul without reflection, like a pile
Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.

Ask thought for joy; grow rich, and hoard within.
Think you the soul, when this life's rattles cease,
Has nothing of more manly to succeed?
Contract the taste immortal: learn e'en now
To relish what alone subsists hereafter.
Divine, or none, henceforth your joys for ever,
Of age the glory is, to wish to die.
That wish is praise, and promise; it applauds
Past life, and promises our future bliss.
What weakness see not children in their sires!
Grand-climacterical absurdities!

Grey-hair'd authority, to faults of youth,
How shocking! it makes folly thrice a fool,
And our first childhood might our last despise.
Peace and esteem is all that age can hope.
Nothing but wisdom gives the first; the last,
Nothing, but the repute of being wise.
Folly bars both; our age is quite undone.

What folly can be ranker? Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen, as our sun declines.
No wish should loiter, then, this side the grave.
Our hearts should leave the world, before the knell
Calls for our carcasses to mend the soil.
Enough to live in tempest, die in port:
Age should fly concourse, cover in retreat

And, first, thy youth. What says it to grey hairs? Defects of judgment, and the will subdue;
Narcissa, I'm become thy pupil now-

Early, bright, transient, chaste, as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhal'd, and went to Heaven.
Time on this head has snow'd; yet still 'tis borne
Aloft; nor thinks but on another's grave.
Cover'd with shame I speak it, age severe
Old worn-out vice sets down for virtue fair;
With graceless gravity, chastising youth,
That youth chastis'd surpassing in a fault.
Father of all, forgetfulness of death:
As if, like objects passing on the sight,
Death had advanc'd too near us to be seen:
Or, that life's loan time ripen'd into right;
And men might plead prescription from the grave;
Deathless, from repetition of reprieve.
Deathless? far from it! such are dead already:
Their hearts are buried, and the world their grave.
Tell me, some god! my guardian angel! tell,
What thus infatuates? what enchantment plants
The phantom of an age, 'twixt us and death
Already at the door? He knocks, we hear,
And yet we will not hear. What mail defends
Our untouch'd hearts? What miracle turns off
The pointed thought, which from a thousand quivers
Is daily darted, and is daily shunn'd?
We stand, as in a battle, throngs on throngs
Around us falling; wounded oft ourselves;
Though bleeding with our wounds, immortal still!
We see Time's furrows on another's brow,
And Death intrench'd, preparing his assault.
How few themselves in that just mirror see!
Or, seeing, draw their inference as strong!
There death is certain; doubtful here: he must,
And soon; we may, within an age, expire. [green;
Though grey our heads, our thoughts and aims are
Like damag'd clocks, whose hand and bell dissent;
Folly sings six, while Nature points at twelve.

Absurd longevity! More, more, it cries:
More life, more wealth, more trash of every kind.
And wherefore mad for more, when relish fails?
Object, and appetite, must club for joy;
Shall folly labor hard to mend the bow,
Baubles, I mean, that strike us from without,
While Nature is relaxing every string?

Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore
Of that vast ocean it must sail so soon;
And put good-works on board; and wait the wind
That shortly blows us into worlds unknown;
If unconsider'd too, a dreadful scene!

All should be prophets to themselves; foresee
Their future fate; their future fate foretaste;
This art would waste the bitterness of death.
The thought of death alone, the fear destroys.
A disaffection to that precious thought
Is inore than midnight darkness on the soul,
Which sleeps beneath it, on a precipice,
Puff'd off by the first blast, and lost for ever.

Dost ask, Lorenzo, why so warmly prest,
By repetition hammer'd on thine ear,
The thought of death? That thought is the machine,
The grand machine! that heaves us from the dust,
And rears us into men. That thought, plied home,
Will soon reduce the ghastly precipice
O'er-hanging Hell, will soften the descent,
And gently slope our passage to the grave;
How warmly to be wish'd! What heart of flesh
Would trifle with tremendous? dare extremes?
Yawn o'er the fate of infinite? What hand,
Beyond the blackest brand of censure bold,
(To speak a language too well known to thee,)
Would at a moment give its all to chance,
And stamp the die for an eternity?

Aid me, Narcissa, aid me to keep pace
With Destiny; and ere her scissars cut
My thread of life, to break this tougher thread
Of moral death, that ties me to the world.
Sting thou my slumbering reason to send forth
A thought of observation on the foe;
To sally; and survey the rapid march
Of his ten thousand messengers to man;
Who, Jehu-like, behind him turns them all.
All accident apart, by Nature sign'd,
My warrant is gone out, though dormant yet;
Perhaps behind one moment lurks my fate.

Must I then forward only look for Death?
Backward I turn mine eye, and find him there
Man is a self-survivor every year.
Man, like a stream, is in perpetual flow

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