THE chamber, where the good man meets his fate,
Which pluck'd a little more, will toll the bell, NO. 163. DEATH-CHAMBER OF THE
That calls my few friends to my funeral;
Where feeble nature drops perhaps a tear,
While Reason and Religion, better taught,
Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory;
It binds in chains the raging ills of life;
95
Lust and Ambition, Wrath and Avarice,
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud
pow'r.
That ills corrosive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O Death, is thine.
Our day of dissolution !-Name it right; 100
'Tis our great pay-day, 'tis our harvest, rich
And ripe. What though the sickle, some-
Is privileg'd beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heav'n.
Fly ye profane ! If not, draw near with awe.
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance, 5
That threw in this Bethesda your disease;
If unrestor'd by this, despair your cure.
For, here, resistless demonstration dwells;
A death-bed's a detector of the heart,
Here tir'd Dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace, that mistress of the
Here real and apparent are the same.
You see the man; you see his hold on heav'n,
If sound his virtue, as Philander's, sound.
Heav'n waits not the last moment; owns her
Just scars us, as we reap the golden grain?
More than thy balm, O Gilead heals the
wound.
[groan, 105
Birth's feeble cry, and Death's deep dismal
Are slender tributes low-tax'd Nature pays
For mighty gain; The gain of each, a life!
But O the last, the former so transcends,
Life dies, compar'd! Life lives beyond the A lecture silent, but of sov'reign pow'r !
[of thee? 110 To vice, confusion; and to virtue, peace.
15 On this side death, and points them out to
And feel I, Death! no joy from thought
Death the great counsellor, who man inspires
With ev'ry nobler thought, and fairer deed!"
Death, the deliverer, who rescues man!
THE bell strikes one. We take no note of time,
Death the rewarder, who the rescu'd crowns ; But from its loss. To give it then a tongue,
Death, that absolves my birth; a curse with-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
flood.
Rich Death, that realizes all my cares,
Toils, virtues, hopes, without it a chimera;
Death, of all pain the period, not of joy ;
Joy's source, and subject, still subsist unhurt; It is the signal that demands dispatch,
One, in my soul; and one, in her great How much is to be done? My hopes and
[dust. 120
Though the four winds were warring for my Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge,
Yes, and from winds and waves, and central Look down-on what? A fathomless abyss; 10
A dread eternity! How surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
O Time than gold more sacred; more a
load
Though prison'd there, my dust too I reclaim, (To dust, when drop proud Nature's proudest spheres,)
And live entire. Death is the crown of life. 125
Were death deny'd, poor man would live in Than lead, to fools; and fools reputed wise. 15
What moment granted man, without account?
Were death deny'd, to live would not be life; What years are squander'd, Wisdom's debt
Were death deny'd, ev'n fools would wish to
[reign! Our wealth in days, all due to that discharge. Death wounds to cure. We fall, we rise, we Haste, haste, he lies in wait, he's at the door, Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies; Insidious Death! should his strong hand Where blooming Eden withers in our sight.131 Death gives us more than was in Eden lost; This king of terrors is the prince of peace. When shall I die to vanity, pain, death? 134 When shall I die?-When shall I live forever?
"I've lost a day"-the prince who nobly | On this great theme, kind Nature keeps •
Had been an emperor without his crown; Of Rome? Say, rather, lord of human race; He spoke, as if deputed by mankind.
So should all speak. So Reason speaks in all.
From the soft whispers of that God in man, 30
Why fly to folly, why to frenzy fly,
For rescue from the blessings we possess?
Time, the supreme !-Time is eternity;
Pregnant with all eternity can give,
Pregnant with all that makes archangels
smile.
35
Who murders time, he crushes in the birth
A pow'r ethereal, only not ador'd.
Ah! how unjust to Nature, and himself,
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent Man!
Like children babbling nonsense in their
sports,
We censure Nature for a span too short;
That span too short, we tax as tedious too;
Torture invention, all expedients tire,
To lash the ling'ring moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance! )from our-
selves,
Art, brainless Art! our furious charioteer, (For Nature's voice unstifled would recall,) Drives headlong tow'rds the precipice of Death; Death most our dread; Death thus more dreadful made.
O what a riddle of absurdity!
Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot-wheels.
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain,
It makes us wander; wander earth around 54
To fly that tyrant, Thought. As Atlas groan'd
The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.
We cry for mercy to the next amusement.
The next amusement mortgages our fields!
Slight inconvenience! Prisons hardly frown,
From hateful Time, if prisons set us free.
Yet when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruei; years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telescope is turn'd;
To Man's false optics (from his folly false)
Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And seems to creep, decrepit with his age.
Behold him, when past by; what then is
Cry out for vengeance on us! Time destroy'd
Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt.
Time flies, Death urges, knells call, Heav'n
invites,
Hell threatens; all exerts; in effort, all; 85
More than creation labors !-labors more?
And is there in creation, what, amidst
This tumult universal, wing'd dispatch,
And ardent energy, supinely yawns?—
Man sleeps; and man alone; and man, whose fate, 90
Fate irreversible, intire, extreme, Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulph [whom A moment trembles; drops! and man, for All else is in alarm! man, the sole cause Of this surrounding storm! And yet he sleeps,
As the storm rock'd to rest.-Throw years away? [seize ; Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments Heav'n's on their wing. A moment we may wish, [stand still; When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day Bid him drive back his car, recall, retake 100 Fate's hasty prey. Implore him; reimport The period past; regive the given hour. Lorenzo, more than miracles we want; Lorenzo,- O for yesterdays to come! -Life speeds away
From point to point, though seeming to stand still.
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth.
Too subtle is the movement to be seen;
Yet soon man's hour is up, and we are gone.
Warnings point out our danger; gnomons,
As these are useless, when the sun is set ; So those, but when more glorious Reason shines.
Reason should judge in all; in reason's eye, That sedentary shadow travels hard. But his broad pinions swifter than the winds? But such our gravitation to the wrong, And all mankind, in contradiction strong, So prone our hearts to whisper what we wish, Rueful, aghast! cry out on his career. 70 'Tis later with the wise, than he's aware; All-sensual man, because untouch'd, un- A Wilmington goes slower than the sun;
Man must compute that age he cannot feel,125 That man might feel his error, if unseen:
He scarce believes he's older for his years.
Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in store
One disappointment sure, to crown the rest;
The disappointment of a promis'd hour.
NO. 165. PROCRASTINATION.
TOT 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.
And, feeling, fly to labor for his cure;
Not, blund'ring, spirit on idleness for ease.
Life's cares are comforts, such by Heav'n de-
sign'd.
[wretched.
He that has none, must make them, or be
The soul is on the rack; the rack of rest,
Cares are employments; and without employ,
To souls most adverse; action all their joy, 15
NO. 167. WONDERS OF HUMAN NA-
TURE.
From diff'rent natures marvellously mix'd, 5
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sully'd and absorpt!
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 Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
Though sully'd and dishonor'd, still divine !10
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
A worm! a god !-I tremble at myself, On this reversion, takes up ready praise; 20 And in myself am lost! At home, a stranger,45 At least their own; their future selves ap-Thought wonders up and down, surpris'd, plauds. How excellent that life they ne'er will lead ! And wond'ring at her own. How reason reels! Time lodg'd in their own hands is Folly's vails; O what a miracle to man, is man! That log'd in Fate's, to Wisdom they consign; Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what [dread! The thing they can't but purpose, they post-lternately transported, and alarm'd! 25 What can preserve my life? or what destroy? An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
"Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through ev'ry stage. When young,
In full content, we sometimes nobly rest,
and only wish,
[indeed, Legions of angels can't confine me there. NO. 168. THE SONS OF PLEASURE. E Ye land!
Un-anxious for ourselves, as were more wise. Yell array'd: Ve lilies of our lan
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.
NO. 166. INDUSTRY.
(As sister-lilies might,) if not so wise 35 As Solomon, more sumptuous to the sight! Ye delicate! who nothing can support, Yourselves most insupportable! for whom The winter rose must blow; the sun put on A brighter beam in Leo; silky soft Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid;
TIME wasted is existence, us live ordain'd, And other worlds send odors, sauce and soign
Wrings and oppresses with enormous weight. And why? since time was giv'n for use, not waste,
Injoin'd to fly, with tempest, tide and stars,
To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man.
Time's use was doom'd a pleasure; waste, a
pain;
O ye Lorenzos of our age! who deem
One moment unamus'd, a misery,
Not made for feeble man! who call aloud
For ev'ry bauble, drivell'd o'er by sense,
For rattles and conceits of ev'ry cast,
For change of follies and relays of joy,
As bees mix'd nectar draw from fragant flowr's,
So inen from Friendship, wisdom and de-
light;
Twins ty'd by nature; if they part, they die.
Hast thou no friend, to set thy mind abroach?
Good sense will stagnate. Thoughts shut up,
want air,
And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun. 15
Had thought been all, sweet speech had been
deny'd ;
[criterion too!
Speech, thought's canal! Speech, thought's
Thought in the mine, may come forth gold or
dross;
Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives The precious end, which makes our wisdom wise.
Nature, in zeal for human amity,
Denies, or damps, an undivided joy.
Joy is an import; joy is an exchange;
Joy flies monopolists; it calls for two;
Rich fruit! Heav'n-planted! never pluck'd by
Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give
To social man, true relish of himself.
Full on ourselves descending in a line,
Pleasure's bright beam is feeble in delight.
Delight intense, is taken by rebound;
Reverberated pleasures fire the breast.
Celestial Happiness, whene'er she stoops
To visit earth, one shrine the goddess finds, 63
And one alone, to make her sweet amends
For absent heav'n-the bosom of a friend ;
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft,
Each other's pillow to repose divine.
Beware the counterfeit. In passion's flame 70
Hearts melt; but melt, like ice, soon harder
froze.
[foe:
True love strikes root in reason; passion's
Virtue alone entenders us for life.
I wrong her much-entenders us forever.
Of Friendship's fairest fruits, the fruit most
fair
When coin'd in word, we know its real worth.
If sterling, store it for thy future use;
"Twill buy thee benefit, perhaps renown.
Thought too, deliver'd, is the more possest;
Teaching, we learn; and, giving, we retain
The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot.
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire;
Speech burnishes our mental magazine;
Brightens, for ornament, and whets, for use.
What numbers, sheath'd in erudition, lie
Plung'd to the hilts, in venerable tomes,
And rusted in; who might have borne an
edge,
And play'd a sprightly beam, if born to speech!
If born blest heirs to half their mother's Glorious surviver of old Time and Death!
From Friendship, thus, that flow'r of heav'nly
seed,
[nate push 'Tis thought's exchange, which, like the alterOf waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum, And defecates the student's standing pool. In contemplation is his proud resource?
Is virtue, kindling at a rival fire,
And emulously rapid in her race.
O the soft enmity! endearing strife!
This carries friendship to her noon-tide point,
And gives the rivet of eternity.
From Friendship, which outlives my former
themes,
The wise extract earth's most Hyblean bliss,
Superior wisdom, crown'd with smiling joy. 85
But for whom, blossoms this Elysian flow'r
Abroad they find, who cherish it at home.
Lorenzo pardon what my love extorts
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