Virtue alone has majesty in death;
And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns.-YOUNG. SECTION VII.
Reflections on a future state, from a review of winter. 1 "Tis done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
See here thy pictur'd life: pass some few years,
Thy flow'ring spring, thy summer's ardent strength,
Thy sober autumn fading into age,
And pale concluding winter comes at last,
Ah! whither now are fled Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes Of happiness? those longings after fame!
Those restless cares? those busy bustling days?
Those gay-spent, festive nights? those veering thoughts,
Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life?
. All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal, never-failing friend of man,
His guide to happiness on high. And see!
"Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heav'n and earth! awak'ning nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In ev'ry heighten'd form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refin'd clears up apace.
4 Ye vainly wise! Ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power,
And Wisdom, oft arraign'd: see now the cause
Why unassuming worth in secret liv'd,
And died neglected: why the good man's share
In life was gall, and bitterness of soul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans, pin'd
In starving solitude; while luxury,
In palaces lay straining her low thought,
To form sureal wants: why heav'n-born truth,
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of superstition's scourge: why licens'd pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe,
Imbitter'd all our bliss.
Ye good distress'd!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile,
And what your bounded view which only saw
A little part deem'd evil, is no more:
The storms of wint'ry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded spring encircle all.-THOMSON.
SECTION VIII.
Adam's advice to Eve, to avoid temptation.
1 O woman, best are all things as the will Of God ordain'd them; his creating hand Nothing imperfect or deficient left
Of all that he created, much less man, Or aught that might his happy state secure, Secure from outward force. Within himself The danger lies, yet lies within his pow'r : Against his will he can receive no harm. 2 But God left free the will; for what obeys Reason, is free, and reason he made right; But bid her well beware, and still erect, Lest, by some fair appearing good surpris'd, She dictate false, and misinform the will To do what God expressly hath forbid. Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins That I should mind thee oft: and mind thou me. 3 Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve, Since reason not impossibly may meet Some spacious object by the foe suborn'd, And fall into deception unaware,
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warn'd. Seek not temptation then, which to avoid Were better, and most likely if from me Thou sever not; trial will come unsought. 4 Wouldst thou approve thy constancy? approve First thy obedience; th' other who can know, Not seeing thee attempted, who attest? But if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warn'd thou seem'st,
Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more:
Go in thy native innocence; rely
On what thou hast of virtue, summon all;
For God towards thee hath done his part; do thine."
SECTION IX.
On procrastination.
1 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 concers of an eternal scene.
Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live:"
Forever 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;
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. 3 All promise is poor dilatory man;
And that thro' ev'ry 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 pnrpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought,
Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.
4 And why? Because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal, but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where, past 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.-YOUNG.
That philosophy, which stops at secondary causes, reproved.
1 Happy the man who sees a God employ'd
In all the good and ill that checker life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns; (since from the least
The greatest oft originate ;) could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan;
Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.
2 This truth, philosophy, though eagle-ey'd
In nature's tendencies, oft o'erlooks;
And having found his instrument, forgets
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still,
Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men
That live an atheist life; involves the heav'n
In tempests; quits his grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury; bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrefy the breath of blooming health;
He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivel'd lips,
And taints the golden ear; he springs his mines.
And desolates a nation at a blast:
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and discordant springs
And principles; of causes, how they work
Py necessary laws their sure effects,
Of action and re-action.
The source of the disease that nature feels;
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.
Thou fool! will thy discov'ry of the cause
Suspend th' effect, or heal it? Has not God
Still wrought by means since first he made the world?
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it? What is his creation less
Than a capacious reservoir of means,
Form'd for his use, and ready at his will?
Go dress thine eyes with eye-salve; ask of him,
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught;
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all. coWPER.
SECTION XI.
Indignant sentiments on national prejudices and hatred; and on slavery.
Į Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with ev'ry day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart;
It does not feel for man. The nat'ral bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd, as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
2 He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own; and having pow'r
T'enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd,
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
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