But keep thy looks and mind ferene,
All gay without, all calm within;
For Fate is aw'd, and adverse fortunes fly
NOULD mournful fighs, or floods of tears, prevent A chearful look, and an unconquer'd eye,
The ills, unhappy men lament:
Could all the anguish of my mind
Remove my cares, or make but Fortune kind ;
Soon I'd the grateful tribute pay, And weep my troubled thoughts away: To wealth and pleasure every figh prefer, And more than gems efteem each falling tear.
But, fince infulting cares are most inclin'd
To triumph o'er th' afflicted mind;
Since fighs can yield us no relief,
And tears, like fruitful showers, but nourish grief;
Then ceafe, fair mourner, to complain, Nor lavish fuch bright streams in vain : But ftill with chearful thoughts thy cares beguile, And tempt thy better fortunes with a smile,
The generous mind is by its fufferings known,
Which no affliction tramples down;
But when opprefs'd will upward move,
Spurn down its clog of cares, and foar above,
Thus the young royal eagle tries
On the fun-beams his tender eyes,
And, if he fhrinks not at th' offenfive light,
PARENT of beauteous benightf
ARENT of Day! whofe beauteous beams of light
And midst their native horrors show,
Like gems adorning of the Negro's brow:
Not heav'n's fair bow can equal thee,
In all its gaudy drapery ;
Thou first effay of light, and pledge of day!
That usher'ft in the fun, and ftill prepar'st its way,
Rival of fhade, eternal spring of light!
Thou art the genuine fource of it: From thy bright unexhausted womb, The beauteous race of days and seasons come, Thy beauty ages cannot wrong,
But, fpite of time, thou 'rt ever young: Thou art alone heaven's most virgin light,
He's then for empire fit, and takes his foaring flight. Whofe face a veil of blushes hides from human fight.
Though cares affault thy breast on every fide,
Yet bravely ftem th' impetuous tide:
No tributary tears to fortune pay,
Nor add to any lofs a nobler day;
But with kind hopes fupport thy mind,
And think thy better lot behind:
Amidft afflictions let thy foul be great,
And shew thou dar'ft deserve a better state.
Like fome fair bride thou riseft from thy bed,
And doft around thy luftre fpread;
Around the universe difpenfe
New life to all, and quickening influence.
With gloomy smiles thy rival Night
Beholds thy glorious dawn of light:
Not all the wealth fhe views in mines below
Can match thy brighter beams, or equal luftre shew.
At thy approach, Nature erects her head,
The fmiling universe is glad;
The drowsy earth and seas awake,
And, from thy beams, new life and vigour take:
When thy more chearful rays appear,
Ev'n guilt and women ceafe to fear:
Horror, Defpair, and all the fons of night
Retire before thy beams, and take their hafty flight.
To thee, the grateful Eaft their altars raise,
And fing with early hymns thy praife;
Thou doft their happy foil beftow,
Enrich the heavens above, and earth below:
Thou rifeft in the fragrant Eaft,
Like the fair Pœnix from her balmy nek:
No altar of the gods can equal thine,
The air's thy richest incenfe, the whole land thy fhrine!
But yet thy fading glories foon decay.
Thine's but a momentary stay;
Too foon thou 'rt ravish'd from our fight,
Borne down the ftream of day, and overwhelm'd with light.
Thy beams to their own ruin hafte,
They 're fram'd too exquisite to last:
Thine is a glorious, but a short-liv'd state.
Pity fo fair a birth should yield fo foon to fate!
Before th' Almighty Artist fram'd the fky,
Or gave the earth its harmony,
His firft command was for thy light;
He view'd the lovely birth, and blessed it:
In purple fwaddling-bands it ftruggling lay,
Not yet maturely bright for day :
Old Chaos then a chearful smile put on,
And, from thy beauteous form, did first prefage its own.
"Let there be Light!" the great Creator faid,
His word the active child obeyed:
Night did her teeming womb difclofe:
And then the blufhing Morn, its brighteft offspring,
rofe.
A while th' Almighty wondering view'd,
And then himself pronounc'd it good:
With Night," faid he, "divide th' imperial fway;
Thou my firft labour art, and thou shalt bless the
Day."
ARKNESS, thou firft great parent of us all, Thou art our great original:
Since from thy universal womb
Say, in what diftant region doft thou dwell,
To Reason inacceffible;.
From form and duller matter free,
Thou foar'st above the reach of man's philosophy.
Involv'd in thee, we firft receive our breath,
Thou art our refuge too in death:
Great Monarch of the Grave and Womb,
Where-e'er our fouls fhall go, to thee our bodies come.
V.
The filent globe is ftruck with awful fear,
When thy Majeftic fhades appear:
Thou doft compose the air and fea,
And Earth a fabbath keeps, facred to Reft and Thee.
VI.
In thy ferener fhades our ghofts delight,
And court the umbrage of the Night;
In vaults and gloomy caves they ftray,
But fly the Morning's beams, and ficken at the Day,
VH.
Though solid bodies dare exclude the light,
Nor will the brightest ray admit;
No fubftance can thy force repel,
Thou reign't in depths below, doft in the centre dwell.
The sparkling gems, and ores in mines below,
To thee their beauteous luftre owe;
Though form'd within the womb of Night,
Bright as their fire they shine, with native rays of light.
When thou doft raife thy venerable head,
And art in genuine Night array'd,
Thy Negro beauties then delight;
Beauties, like polish'd jet, with their own darkness bright.
Thou doft thy fmiles impartially bestow,
And know'ft no difference here below:
All things appear the fame by thee,
Though Light diftinction makes, thou giv'ft equality.
XI.
Thou, Darkness, art the lover's kind retreat,
And doft the nuptial joys compleat;
Thou doft infpire them with thy fhade,
Giv'ft vigour to the youth, and warin'ft the yielding
maid.
Calm as the bless'd above the Anchorites dwell,
Within their peaceful gloomy cell.
Their minds with heavenly joys are fill'd;
Does all thou fhad'ft below, thy numerous offspring, The pleafures Light deny, thy fhades for ever yield.
When the Almighty did on Horeb stand,
Thy fhades inclos'd the hallow'd land;
In clouds of Night he was array'd,
And venerable Darkness his pavillion made.
When he appear'd arm'd in his power and might,
He veil'd the beatific light;
When terrible with majefty,
In tempefts he gave laws, and clad himself in thee.
XVI.
Ere the foundation of the earth was laid,
Or brighter firmament was made;
Ere matter, time, or place, were known,
Thou, Monarch Darkness, fway'dft these spacious
From our first drawing vital breath,
From our first starting from the womb,
Until we reach the deftin'd tomb,
We all are pofting on to the dark jail of death.
Life, like a cloud that fleets before the wind,
No mark, no kind impreffion, leaves behind,
'Tis fcatter'd like the winds that blow,
Boisterous as them, full as inconftant too,
That know not whence they come, nor where they go.
Here we 're detain'd a while, and then
Become originals again:
Time fhall a man to his first felf restore,
And make him intire nothing, all he was before.
No part of us, no remnant, fhall furvive!
And yet we impudently fay, we live!
No! we but ebb into ourselves again,
But, now the Moon (though gay with borrow'd light) And only some to be, as we had never been.
Invades thy fcanty lot of Night:
By rebel fubjects thou 'rt betray'd,
The anarchy of Stars depofe their Monarch Shade.
Yet fading light its empire must refign,
And Nature's power fubmit to thine:
An univerfal ruin shall erect thy throne,
And Fate confirm thy kingdom evermore thy own.
Say, learned Sage, thou that art mighty wife!
Unriddle me these mysteries:
What is the foul, the vital heat,
That our mean frame does animate?
What is our breath, the breath of man,
That buoys his nature up, and does ev'n life fuftain?
Is it not air, an empty fume,
A fire that does itself confume;
A warmth that in a heart is bred,
HUMAN LIFE. A lambent fame with heat and motion fed?
SUPPOSED TO BE SPOKEN BY AN EPICURE.
In Imitation of the Second Chapter of the WISDOM of SOLOMON.
A PINDARIG ODE.
HEN will penurious Heaven no more allow?
No more on its own darling man bestow?
Is it for this he lord of all appears,
And his great Maker's image bears?
To toil beneath a wretched state,
Opprefs'd with miseries and fate;
Beneath his painful burthen groan,
And in this beaten road of life drudge on I
Amidft our labors, we poffefs
No kind allays of happiness:
No foftening joys can call our own,
To make this bitter drug go down;
Whilft death an eafy conqueft gains,
And the infatiate Grave in endless triumph reigns.
With throes and pangs into the world we come,
The curfe and burthen of the womb;
Nor wretched to ourselves alone,
Our mothers' labours introduce our own.
In cries and tears our infancy we waste,
Thofe fad prophetic tears that flow
By instinct of our future woe;
And even our dawn of life with forrows overcaft.
Thus we toil out a restless age,
Each his laborious part must have,
Down from the monarch to the flave,
4t o'er this farce of life, then drop beneath the stage.
Extinguish that, the whole is gone,
This boafted fcene of life is done:
Away the phantom takes its flight,
Damn'd to a loathsome grave, and an eternal night,
The foul, th' immortal part we boast,
In one confuming minute 's loft;
To its firft fource it must repair,
Scatter with winds, and flow with common air.
Whilft the fall'n body, by a swift decay,
Refolves into its native clay:
For duft and afhes are its fecond birth,
And that incorporates too with its great parent Earth.
Nor fhall our names our memories furvive,
Alas, no part of man can live!
The empty blafts of fame shall die,
And even thofe nothings tafte mortality.
In vain to future ages we tranfmit
Heroic acts, and monuments of wit:
In vain we dear-bought honors leave,
To make our ashes gay, and furnish out a grave.
Ah, treacherous immortality!
For thee our stock of youth we waste,
And urge on life, that ebbs too fast:
To purchase thee with blood, the valiant fly;
And, to furvive in fame, the great and glorious die.
Lavish of life, they fquander this estate,
And for a poor reverfion wait:
Bankrupts and mifers to themselves they grow,
Embitter wretched life with toils and woe,
To hoard up endless fame, they know not where or how.
Fruition only cloys the appetite;
Ah, think, my friends, how fwift the minutes hafte! More does the conqueft, than the prize delight:
The prefent day entirely is our own,
Then feize the bleffing ere tis gone:
To-morrow, fatal found! fince this may be our laft.
Why do we boaft of years, and fum up days!
'Tis all imaginary space:
To-day, to-day, is our inheritance,
"Tis all penurious Fate will give
Pofterity 'll to-morrow live,
Our fons crowd on behind, our children drive us hence.
With garlands then your temples crown,
And lie on beds of rofes down:
Beds of rofes we 'll prepare,
Rofes that our emblems are ;
A while they flourish on the bough,
And drink large draughts of heavenly dew:
Like us they fmile, are young and and gay,
And, like us too, are tenants for a day,
Since with Night's blafting breath they vanish swift
Bring chearful wine, and costly sweets prepare:
'Tis more than frenzy now to spare:
Let cares and business wait a while;
Old age affords a thinking interval:
Or, if they muft a longer hearing have,
Bid them attend below, adjourn into the grave.
Then gay and fprightly wine produce,
Wines that wit and mirth infufe:
That feed, like oil, th' expiring flame,
Revive our drooping fouls, and prop this tottering frame.
That, when the grave our bodies has engrofs'd,
When virtues fhall forgotten lie,
With all their boasted piety,
Honors and titles, like ourselves, be loft;
Then our recorded vice fhall flourish on,
And our immortal riots be for ever known.
This, this, is what we ought to do,
The great defign, the grand affair below!
Since bounteous Nature plac'd our Steward here,
Then man his grandeur fhould maintain,
And in excess of pleasure reign,
Keep up his character, and lord of all appear.
ENJOYMENT,
E love and hate, as reftlefs monarchs fight,
WE Who boldly dare invade another's right:
Yet, when through all the dangerous toils they've run,
Ignobly quit the conquefts they have won ;
Thofe charming hopes, that made them valiant grow,
Pall'd with Enjoyment, make them cowards now.
Our paffions only form our happiness,
Hopes ftill enlarge, as fears contract it lefs:
Hope with a gaudy profpect feeds the eye,
Sooths every fenfe, does with each with comply;
But falfe Enjoyment the kind guide destroys,
We lofe the paffion in the treacherous joys.
Like the gay filk-worm, when it pleases moft,
In that ungrateful web it fpun, 'tis loft,
One victory gain'd, another fills the mind,
Our restlefs withes cannot be confin'd.
Like boisterous waves, no fettled bounds they know,
Fix'd at no point, but always ebb or flow.
Who most expects, enjoys the pleasure moft,
"Tis rais'd by wifhes, by fruition loft:
We're charm'd with diftant views of happiness,
But near approaches make the prospect less.
Wishes, like painted landscapes, beft delight,
Whilft diftance recommends them to the fight;
Plac'd afar off, they beautiful appear;
But fhow their coarfe and naufeous colours, near.
Thus the fam'd Midas, when he found his ftere,
Increasing ftill, and would admit of more,
With eager arms his fwelling bags he prefs'd;
And expectation only made him blefs'd:
But, when a boundless treasure he enjoy'd,
And every wish was with fruition cloy'd:
Then, damn'd to heaps, and furfeited with ore,
He curs'd that gold he doated an before.
THE CURSE OF BABYLON.
ISAIAH, Chap. xiii. paraphrased.
OW let the fatal banner be display'd!
Upon fome lofty mountain's top
Go fet the dreadful standard up!
And all around the hills the bloody fignals fpread.
For, lo, the numerous hoft of heaven appear!
Th' embattled legions of the sky,
With all their dread artillery,
Draw forth in bright array, and mufter in the air.
Why do the mountains tremble with the noise,
And valleys echo back their voice?
The hills tumultuous grow and loud,
The hills that groan beneath the gathering multitude.
Wide as the poles of heaven's extent,
So far 's the dreadful fummons fent:
Kingdoms and nations at his call appear,
For ev'n the Lord of Hofts commands in perfon there,
II.
Start from thy lethargy, thou drowsy land,
Awake, and hear his dread command!
Thy black tempeftuous day comes lowering on,
O fatal light! O inaufpicious hour!
Was ever fuch a day before!
So ftain'd with blood, by marks of vengeance know.
Nature fhall from her fteady course remove,
The well-fix'd earth be from its bafis rent,
Convulfions shake the firmament;
Horror feize all below, confufion reign above.
The ftars of heaven shall ficken at the fight,
Nor fhall the planets yield their light:
But from the wretched object fly,
And, like extinguifh'd tapers, quit the darken'd sky.
The rifing fun, as he was confcious too,
As he the fatal business knew,
A deep, a bloody red shall stain
And at his early dawn fhall fet in night again.
To the deftroying fword I've faid, Go forth, Ge, fully execute my wrath! Command my hofts, my willing armies lead; For this rebellious land and all therein fhall bleed. They fhall not grieve me more, no more tranfgrefs; I will confume the ftubborn race: Yet brutes and favages I justly spare ;
Ufelefs is all my vengeance there; Ungrateful man's the greater monfter far. On guiltless beafts I will the land bestow,
To them th' inheritance fhall go;
Thofe elder brothers now fhall lord it here below:
And, if fome poor remains escape behind,
Some relicks left of loft mankind;
Th' aftonish'd herds fhall in their cities cry,
When they behold a man, Lo, there's a prodigy!
The Medes I call to my affiftance here,
A people that delight in war;
A generous race of men, a nation free
From vicious ease and Perfian luxury.
Silver is defpicable to their eyes,
Contema'd the ufelefs metal lies:
Their conquering iron they prefer before
The finest gold, ev'n Ophir's tempting ore.
By these the land shall be subdued,
Abroad their bows fhall overcome,
Their fwords and flames deftroy at home;
For neither fex nor age fhall be exempt from blood.
The nobles and the princes of thy state
Shall on the victor's triumphs wait:
And thofe that from the battle fled
Shall be, with chains opprefs'd, in cruel bondage led.
I'll vifit their diftrefs with plagues and miferies,
The throes that womens' labours wait,
Convulfive pangs, and bloody fweat,
Their beauty fhall confume, and vital fpirits feize.
The ravish'd virgins fhall be borne away,
And their difhonor'd wives be led
To the infulting victor's bed,
To brutal lufts expos'd, to fury left a prey.
Nor fhall the teeming womb afford
Its forming births a refuge from the fword;
The fword, that shall their pangs increase, And all the throes of travail curfe with barrenness, The infants fhall expire with their firft breath,
And only live in pangs of death;
Live but with early cries to curfe the light,
And, at the dawn of life, fet in eternal night.
VI.
Ev'n Babylon, adorn'd with every grace,
The beauty of the univerfe: Glory of nations! the Chaldæan's pride, And joy of all th' admiring world befide: Thou, Babylon! before whose throne The empires of the earth fall down; The proftrate nations homage pay, And vaffal princes of the world obey: Shalt in the duft be trampled low: Abject and low upon the earth be laid, And deep in ruins hide thy ignominious head. Thy ftrong amazing walls, whofe impious height The clouds conceal from human fight ; --
That proudly now their polish'd turrets rear,
Which bright as neighbouring stars appear,
Diffufing glories round th' enlighten'd air,
In flames fhall downwards to their centre fly,
And deep within the earth, as their foundations, lie.
VII.
Thy beauteous palaces (though now thy pride!)
Shall be in heaps of afhes hid:
In vaft furprizing heaps fhall lie,
And ev'n their ruins bear the pomp of majesty.
No bold inhabitant fhall dare
Thy ras'd foundations to repair:
No pitying hand exalt thy abject state;
No! to fucceeding times thou must remain
An horrid exemplary scene,
And lie from age to age ruin'd and defolate.
Thy fall's decreed (amazing turn of fate!)
Low as Gomorrah's wretched ftate:
Thou, Babylon, fhalt be like Sodom curft,
Destroy'd by flames from heaven, and thy more burn.
ing luft.
The day's at hand, when in thy fruitful foil
No laborer fhall reap, no mower toil :
His tent the wandering Arab shall not spread,
Nor make thy curfed ground his bed;
Though faint with travel, though oppreft with thirst,
He to his drooping herds fhall cry aloud,
Tafte not of that embitter'd flood,
Tafte not Euphrates' ftreams, they're poisonous all and curft.
The fhepherd to his wandering flocks shall say,
When o'er thy battlements they stray,
When in thy palaces they graze,
Ah, fly, unhappy flocks! fly this infectious place.
Whilft the fad traveller, that paffes on,
Shall afk, Lo, where is Babylon?
And when he has thy fmall remainder found,
Shall fay, I'll fly from hence, 'tis fure accursed ground.
IX.
Then shall the favages and beafts of prey
From their deserted mountains hafte away;
Every obfcene and vulgar beast
Shall be to Babylon a guest:
Her marble roofs, and every cedar room,
Shall dens and caves of state to nobler brutes become.
Thy courts of juftice, and tribunals too,
(O irony to call them fo!)
There, where the tyrant and oppreffor bore The fpoils of innocence and blood before; There fhall the wolf and favage tiger meet, And griping vulture shall appear in state, There birds of prey fhall rule, and ravenous beafts be great.
Thofe uncorrupted shall remain,
Those shall alone their genuine use retain, There Violence shall thrive, Rapine and Fraud fhall
Then fhall the melancholy Satyrs groan,
O'er their lamented Babylon;
And ghosts that glide with horror by,
To view where their unbury'd bodies lie,
With doleful cries fhall fill the air,
And with amazement ftrike th' affrighted traveller.
There
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