Ah, foolish swain! too late you find, That sties were for such friends design'd. Homeward he limps with painful pace, Reflecting thus on past disgrace. Who cherishes a brutal mate Shall mourn the folly soon or late.
Was known by all the bestial train
Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain.
Her care was, never to offend;
And ev'ry creature was her friend.
As forth she went, at early dawn,
To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn,
Behind she hears the hunter's cries,
§ 126. FABLE XLIX. The Man and the Flea. And from the deep-mouth'd thunder flies:
WHETHER in earth, in air, or main,
Sure ev'ry thing alive is vain!
Does not the hawk all fowls survey As destin'd only for his prey?" And do not tyrants, prouder things, Think men were born for slaves to kings? When the crab views the pearly strands, Or Tagus, bright with golden sands; Or crawls beside the coral grove, And hears the ocean roll above; Nature is too profusé, says he, Who gave all these to pleasure me! When bord'ring pinks and roses bloom, And ev'ry garden breathes perfume; When peaches glow with sunny dyes, Like Laura's cheek when blushes rise; When with huge figs the branches bend, When clusters from the vine depend; The snail looks round on flow'r and tree, And cries, All these were made for me! What dignity's in human nature! Says Man, the most conceited creature, As from a clift he cast his eyes, And view'd the sea and arched skies: The sun was sunk beneath she main ; The moon and all the starry train, Hung the vast vault of heaven. His contemplation thus began:
When I behold this glorious show,
And this wide wat'ry world below,
The scaly people of the main,
The beasts that range the wood or plain,
The wing'd inhabitants of air,
The day, the night, the various year,
And know all these by Heaven design'd
As gifts to pleasure human kind;
I cannot raise my worth too high:
Of what vast consequence am I!
Not of th' importance you suppose,
Replies a Flea upon his nose:
Be humble, learn thyself to scan;
Know, pride was never made for man.
'Tis vanity that swells thy mind,
What, heaven and earth for thee design'd!
For thee, made only for our need,
That more important Fleas might feed.
§ 127. FABLE L. The Hare and many Friends.
FRIENDSHIP, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.
The child, whom many fathers share,
Hath seldom known a father's care.
"Tis thus in friendship; who depend
On many, rarely find a friend.
A hare, who in a civil way Complied with ev'ry thing, like GAY,
She starts, she stops, she pants for breath;
She hears the near advance of death;
She doubles to mislead the hound,
And measures back her mazy round;
Till, fainting in the public way,
Half dead with fear, she gasping lay.
What transport in her bosom grew,
When first the Horse appear'd in view!
Let me, says she, your back ascend,
And owe my safety to a friend.
You know my feet betray my flight:
To friendship ev'ry burthen's light.
The Horse replied, Poor honest Puss!
It grieves my heart to see thee thus :
Be comforted, relief is near;
For all your friends are in the rear.
She next the stately Bull implor'd,
And thus replied the mighty lord:
Since every beast alive can tell
That I sincerely wish you well,
I may, without offence, pretend
To take the freedom of a friend.
Love calls me hence! a fav'rite cow
Expects me near yon barley-mow;
And when a lady's in the case,
You know all other things give place.
To leave you thus might seem unkind;
But see, the Goat is just behind.
The Goat remark'd her pulse was high,
Her languid head, her heavy eye;
My back, says he, may do you harm;
The Sheep's at hand, and wool is warm.
The Sheep was feeble, and complain'd
His sides a load of wool sustain'd:
Said he was slow, confess'd his fears;
For hounds eat sheep as well as hares.
She now the trotting Calf address'd,
To save from death a friend distress'd.
Shall I, says he, of tender age,
In this important care engage?
Older and abler pass'd you by:
How strong are those! how weak am I !
Should I presume to bear you hence,
Those friends of mine may take offence.
Excuse me, then. You know my heart,
But dearest friends, alas! must part.
How shall we all lament! Adieu!
For, see, the hounds are just in view.
YOUNG'S NIGHT THOUGHTS.
§ 128. NIGHT 1. Sleep. TIR'D Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep! He, like the world, his ready visit pays Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he for
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.
From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose
I wake: How happy they who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd, desponding
thought,
From wave to wave of fancy'd misery
At random drove, her helm of reason lost :
Though now restor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
A bitter change; severer for severe :
The day too short for my distress! and night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sunshine, to the color of my fate.
NIGHT, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world:
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor list'ning ear an object finds;
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause
An awful pause, prophetic of her end.
And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd:
Fate! drop the curtain: I can lose no more.
$130. Invocation to Silence and Darkness. SILENCE and Darkness! solemn sisters! twins From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought
To reason, and on reason build resolve,
(That column of true majesty in man)
Assist me: I will thank you in the grave;
The grave, your kingdom: There this frame
shall fall
A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.
But what are ye? Thou who didst put to flight
Primeval Silence, when the morning stars
Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball;
O Thou! whose word from solid darkness struck
That spark, the sun; strike wisdom from my soul.
My soul which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold, while others rest.
Through this opaque of nature, and of soul,
This double night, transmit one pitying ray,
To lighten and to cheer: O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe)
Lead it through various scenes of Life and Death,
And from each scene, the noblest truths inspire.
Nor less inspire my conduct than my song;
Nor let the vial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.
§ 131. Time. ·
THE bell strikes one: We take no note of time,
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue,
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours;
Where are they? With the years beyond the
It is the signal that demands dispatch; [Flood.
How much is to be done! my hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-on what? A fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
How poor! how rich! how abject! how august!
How complicate! how wonderful is Man!
How passing wonder HE who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes!
From different natures marvellously mixt,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal sullied, and absorb'd!
Though sullied, and dishonor'd, still divine!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
And in myself am lost! At home a stranger,
A worm! a god! I tremble at myself;
Thought wanders up and down, surpris'd, aghast,
And wond'ring at her own: how reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man!
Triumphantly distress'd, what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported and alarm'd!
What can preserve my life, or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.
'Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof:
While o'er my limbs Sleep's soft dominion spread,
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom
Of pathless woods; or down the craggy steep
Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled
pool;
Or scal'd the cliff or danc'd on hollow winds,
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?
Her ceaseless flight, tho' devious, speaks her nature
Of subtler essence than the trodden clod;
Active, aerial, tow'ring, unconfin'd,
Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall:
Ev'n silent night proclaims my soul immortal:
Ev'n silent night proclaims eternal day.
For human weal, heaven husbands all events,
Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.
§ 134. Vanity of Lamentation over the Dead.
WHY then their loss deplore, that are not lost?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs
In infidel distress? Are angels there? [around,
Slumbers, rak'd up in dust, ethereal fire?
Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an eye
They live! they greatly live a life on earth
Of tenderness, let heavenly pity fall
On me, more justly number'd with the dead.
This is the desert, this the solitude:
This is creation's melancholy vault,
How populous! how vital is the grave!
The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty shades!
All, all on earth is shadow, all beyond
Is substance; the reverse is folly's creed :
How solid all, where change shall be no more!
§ 135. Life and Eternity.
THIS is the bud of being, the dim dawn;
Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death,
Strong death alone can heave the massy bar,
This gross impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryos of existence free.
From real life, but little more remote
Is he, not yet a candidate for light,
The future embryo, slumbering in his sire.
Embryos we must be, till we burst the shell,
Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life,
The life of gods-O transport! and of man.
Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial hopes without one sigh:
Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his wishes: wing'd by heaven
To fly at infinite, and reach it there,
Where seraphs gather immortality,
On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrosial clust'ring glow
In His full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more! [expire!
Where time, and pain, and chance, and death
And is it in the flight of threescore years,
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust!
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd, or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather or to drown a fly.
Where falls this censure? It o'erwhelms myself.
How was my heart encrusted by the world!
O how self-fetter'd was my groveling soul!
How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round
In silken thought, which reptile Fancy spun,
Till darken'd Reason lay quite clouded o'er
With soft conceit of endless comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!
Our waking dreams are fatal: how I dreamt
Of things impossible! (could sleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective!
Till at Death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone!
Where now my phrensy's pompous furniture!
The cobweb'd cottage with its ragged wall
Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!
The spider's thread is cable to man's tie
On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
§ 136. Time and Death.
O YE blest scenes of permanent delight!
Full above measure! lasting beyond bound
Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy,
And quite unparadise the realms of light.
Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres,
The baleful influence of whose giddy dance
Sheds sad vicissitude on all beneath.
Here teems with revolutions every hour;
And rarely for the better; or the best,
More mortal than the common births of fate:
Each moment has its sickle, emulous
Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plies
His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down
The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss.
Bliss! sublunary bliss! proud words and vain!
Implicit treason to divine decree!
A bold invasion of the rights of heaven!
I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air!
had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace,
What darts of agony had miss'd my heart!
Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the stars:
The sun himself by thy permission shines;
And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his
Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust[sphere.
Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean?
Why thy peculiar rancour wreak'd on me?
Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?
Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was
slain;
[horn.
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her
O Cynthia! why so pale? Dost thou lament
Thy wretched neighbour? grieve, to see thy wheel
Of ceaseless change outwhirl'd in human life?
In ev'ry varied posture, place, and hour, How widow'd every thought of every joy! Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace, Through the dark postern of time long elaps'd, Led softly, by the stillness of the night, Strays, wretched rover! o'er the pleasing past, In quest of wretchedness, perversely strays; And finds all desert now; and meets the ghosts Of my departed joys, a numerous train! I rue the riches of my former fate, Sweet comfort's blasted clusters make me sigh: I tremble at the blessings once so dear; And ev'ry pleasure pains me to the heart. Yet why complain ? or why complain for one? I mourn for millions: 'tis the common lot; In this shape, or in that, has fate entail'd The mother's throes on all of woman born, Not more the children, than sure heirs of pain.
$137. Oppression, Want, and Disease. WAR, famine, pest, volcano, storm, and fire, Intestine broils, oppression with her heart Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind. God's image, disinherited of day,
Here plung'd in mines, forgets a sun was made;
There beings, deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plough the winter's wave, and reap despair
Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread through realms their valor sav'd,
If so the tyrant, or his minion, doom;
Want and incurable Disease (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize
At once; and make a refuge of the grave:
How groaning hospitals eject their dead!
What numbers groan for sad admission there!
What numbers, once in Fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold hand of charity!
To shock us more, solicit it in vain!
Not Prudence can defend, or Virtue save;
Disease invades the chastest temperance;
And punishment the guiltless; and alarm
Thro' thickest shades pursues the fond of peace:
Man's caution often into danger turns,
And, his guard falling, crushes him to death.
Not Happiness itself makes good her name;
Our very wishes give us not our wish.
How distant oft the thing we dote on most,
From that for which we dote, felicity!
The smoothest course of nature has its pains,
And truest friends, thro' error, wound our rest;
Without misfortune, what calamities!
And what hostilities without a foe!
Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.
But endless is the list of human ills,
And sighs might sooner fail, than cause to sigh.
§ 138. Reflections on viewing a Map of the World.
A PART how small of the terraqueous globe
Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,
Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands;
Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and
Such is earth's melancholy map! but, far [death.
More sad; this earth is a true map of man:
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights
To woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss,
Loud sorrows howl; envenom'd passions bite;
Ravenous calamities our vitals seize,
And threat'ning fate wide opens to devour.
§ 139. Sympathy.
WHAT then am I, who sorrow for myself?
In age, in infancy, from others' aid
Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind.
That, Nature's first, last lesson to mankind:
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels;
More generous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts;
And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.
Nor Virtue, more than Prudence, bids ine give
Swoln thought a second channel; who divide,
They weaken too, the torrent of their grief.
Take then, O world! thy much indebted tear:
How sad a sight is human happiness [hour!
To those whose thought can pierce beyond an
O thou! whate'er thou art, whose heart exults!
Wouldst thou I should congratulate thy fate?
I know thou wouldst; thy pride demands it from
Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs, [me.
The salutary censure of a friend:
Thou happy wretch! by blindness art thou blest;
By dotage dandled to perpetual smiles:
Know, smiler! at thy peril art thou pleas'd;
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor severe,
But rises in demand for her delay;
She makes a scourge of past prosperity,
To sting thee more, and double thy distress.
$140. The Instability and Insufficiency of
Human Joys.
LORENZO! Fortune makes her court to thee,
Thy fond heart dances, while the syren sings.
I would not damp, but to secure thy joys.
Think not that fear is sacred to the storm:
Stand on thy guard against the smiles of fate.
Is heaven tremendous in its frown! Most sure:
And in its favors formidable too;
Its favors here are trials, not rewards:
A call to duty, not discharge from care;
And should alarm us, full as much as woes;
O'er our scann'd conduct give a jealous eye;
Awe Nature's tumult, and chastise her joys,
Lest, while we clasp we kill them; nay, invert,
To worse than simple misery, their charms.
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bosom friendships to resentment sour'd,
With rage envenom'd rise against our peace.
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire:
Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death.
Mine died with thee, Philander! thy last sigh
Dissolv'd the charm; the disenchanted earth
Lost all her lustre. Where, her glittering towers?
Her golden mountains, where? all darken'd down
To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears!
The great magician's dead! thou poor, pale piece
Of outcast earth, in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! thy darling hope so near,
(Long-labor'd prize!) death's subtle seed within
(Sly treach'rous miner!) working in the dark,
Smil'd at thy well-concerted scheme, and beck-
The worm to riot on that rose so red,
Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!
$141. Man short-sighted.
THE present moment terminates our sight;
Clouds thick as those on doomsday, drown the
We penetrate, we prophesy in vain.
[next;
Time is dealt out by particles; and each,
Ere mingled with the streaming sands of life,
By fate's inviolable oath is sworn
Deep silence, "Where eternity begins."
§ 142. Presumption of depending on To-morrow.
By Nature's law, what may be, may be now;
There's no prerogative in human hours.
In human hearts what bolder thought can rise,
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is sure to none; and yet on this Perhaps,
This Peradventure, infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant, we build
Our mountain hopes; spin out eternal schemes,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.
8 143. Sudden Death.
NOT ev'n Philander had bespoke his shroud;
Nor had he cause, a warning was deny'd.
How many fall as sudden, not as safe!
As sudden, though for years admonish'd home?
Of human ills the last extreme beware,
Beware, Lorenzo! a slow-sudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate surprise!
Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd 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.
$144. Man's Proneness to postpone Improvement.
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 applauds:
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead!
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign.
All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that thro' every stage: when young, indeed,
In full content, we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As dutcous sons, our fathters 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.
§ 145. Man insensible of his own Mortality. AND why? Because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal, but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where pass'd the shaft, no trace is
found.
As, from the wing no scar the sky retains ;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death:
Ev'n with the tender tear which nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
Can I forget Philander? That were strange;
O my full heart! but should I give it vent,
The longest night, though longer far, would fail,
And the lark listen to my midnight song.
|(Blest av'rice) which the thought of death in
O time! than gold more sacred; more a load
Than lead, to fools; and fools reputed wise.
What moment granted man without account?
What years are squander'd, wisdom's debt un-
paid?
Haste, haste, he lies in wait, he's at the door,
Insidious death! should his strong hand arrest,
No composition sets the prisoner free.
Eternity's inexorable chain
Fast binds; and vengeance claims the full arrear.
How late I shudder'd on the brink! how late
Life call'd for her last refuge in despair!
For what calls thy disease? For moral aid.
Thou think'st it folly to be wise too soon.
Youth is not rich in time; it may be,
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment, but in purchase of its worth;
And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can
Part with it as with life, reluctant; big [tell.
With holy hope of nobler time to come.
Is this our duty, wisdom, glory, gain?
And sport we like the natives of the bough,
When vernal suns inspire? Amusement reigns
Man's great demand: to trifle is to live:
And is it then a trifle, too, to die?-
Who wants amusement in the flame of battle?
Is it not treason to the soul immortal,
Her foes in arms, eternity the prize?
Will toys amuse, when med'cines cannot cure?
When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes
Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight?
(As lands, and cities with their glitt ring spires
To the poor shatter'd bark, by sudden storm
Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there)
Will toys amuse?-no: thrones will then be
toys,
And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale.
Redeem we time?-its loss we dearly buy: What pleads Lorenzo for his high-priz'd sports? He pleads time's numerous blanks; he loudly pleads
The straw-like trifles on life's common stream.
From whom those blanks and trifles, but from
thee?
No blank, no trifle, nature made or meant :
Virtue, or purpos'd virtue, still be thine:
This cancels thy complaint at once; this leaves
In act no trifle, and no blank in time.
This greatens, fills, immortalizes all!
This, the blest art of turning all to gold;
This, the good heart's prerogative to raise
A royal tribute, from the poorest hours:
Immense revenue! every moment pays.
If nothing more than purpose in thy power,
Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed:
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more.
Our outward act, indeed, admits restraint;
§ 146. NIGHT 11. Avarice of Time recom-Tis not in things o'er thought to domineer :
HE mourns the dead, who lives as they desire.
Where is that thrift, that avarice of Time,
Guard well thy thoughts; our thoughts are heard
On all important time, through every age,
|