I chace the moments with a serious song.
Song fooths our pains; and age has pains to footh..
When age, care, crime, and friends embrac'd at heart, Torn from my bleeding breast, and death's dark shade, Which hovers o'er me, quench th' ethereal fire
Canft thou, O Night! indulge one labour more ?
One labour more indulge! then fleep, my strain !
Till, haply, wak'd by Raphael's golden lyre,
Where night, death, age, care, crime, and forrow, cease;
To bear a part in everlasting lays;
Though far, far higher set, in aim, I trust,
Symphonious to this humble prelude here.
Has not the Mufe afferted pleasures pure,
Like those above; exploding other joys?
Weigh what was urg'd, Lorenzo! fairly weigh;
And tell me, haft thou caufe to triumph ftill ?
I think, thou wilt forbear a boast so bold.
But if, beneath the favour of mistake,
Thy fmile 's fincere; not more fincere can be
Lorenzo's fmile, than my compaffion for him.
The fick in body call for aid; the fick
In mind are covetous of more disease;
And when at worst, they dream themselves quite well. To know ourselves difeas'd, is half our cure.
When nature's blush by custom is wip'd off,
And conscience, deaden'd by repeated strokes,
Has into manners naturaliz'd our crimes ;
The curfe of curfes is, our curfe to love;
To triumph in the blackness of our guilt (As Indians glory in the deepest jet),
And throw afide our fenfes with our peace.
But grant no guilt, no fhame, no least alloy;
Grant joy and glory quite unsully'd shone;
Yet, ftill, it ill deferves Lorenzo's heart.
No joy, no glory, glitters in thy fight,
But, through the thin partition of an hour,
I fee its fables wove by deftiny ;.
And that in forrow bury'd; this, in shame ;
While howling furies ring the doleful knell;
And confcience, now fo foft thou scarce canft hear
Her whisper, echoes her eternal peal.
Where, the prime actors of the last year's scene;
Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume?
How many fleep, who kept the world awake
With luftre, and with noife! has death proclaim'd
A truce, and hung his fated lance on high?
'Tis brandifh'd ftill; nor fhall the prefent year
Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or fpread of feeble life a thinner fall.
But needlefs monuments to wake the thought;
Life's gayeft fcenes fpeak man's mortality;
Though in a style more florid, full as plain,
As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs.
What are our nobleft ornaments, but deaths
Turn'd flatterers of life, in paint, or marble,
The well-ftain'd canvas, or the featur'd ftone ?
Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene.
Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.
"Profeft diverfions! cannot these escape?"Far from it: thefe prefent us with a shroud; B 2
And talk of death, like garlands o'er a grave.
As fome bold plunderers, for bury'd wealth,
We ranfack tombs for paftime; from the dust
Call up the fleeping hero; bid him tread
The scene for our amusement: how like gods
We fit; and, wrapt in immortality,
Shed generous tears on wretches born to die ;
Their fate deploring, to forget our own!
What all the pomps and triumphs of our lives,
But legacies in bloffom? Our lean foil,
Luxuriant grown, and rank in vanities,
From friends interr'd beneath; a rich manure!
Like other worms, we banquet on the dead;
Like other worms, fhall we crawl on, nor know
Our prefent frailties, or approaching fate?
Lorenzo! fuch the glories of the world!..
"What is the world itfelf? Thy world—a grave.
Where is the duft that has not been alive?
The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors;
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the cieling of her fleeping fons.
O'er devaftation we blind revels keep;
Whole bury'd towns fupport the dancer's heel.
The moist of human frame the fun exhales;
Winds scatter through the mighty void the dry;
Earth repoffeffes part of what she gave,
And the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;
Each element partakes our scatter'd spoils ;
As nature, wide, our ruins fpread: man's death
Inhabits all things, but the thought of man.
Nor man alone; his breathing buft expires,
His tomb is mortal; empires die: where, now,
The Roman? Greek? They stalk, an empty name!
Yet few regard them in this useful light;
Though half our learning is their epitaph.
When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought,
That loves to wander in thy funless realms,
O death! I stretch my view: what visions rise!
What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine!
In wither'd laurels glide before my fight!
What lengths of far-fam'd ages, billow'd high
With human agitation, roll along
In unfubftantial images of air!
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whispering faint echoes of the world's applaufe, 120 With penitential afpect, as they pass,
All point at earth, and hifs at human pride,
The wisdom of the wife, and prancings of the great.
But, O Lorenzo! far the rest above,
of ghaftly nature, and enormous fize,
One form affaults my fight, and chills my blood,"
And shakes my frame. Of one departed world
I fee the mighty fhadow: oozy wreath
And difinal fea-weed crown her; o'er her urn
Reclin'd, the weeps her defolated realms,
And bloated fons; and, weeping, prophefies
Another's diffolution, foon, in flames.
But, like Caffandra, prophefjes in vain;
In vain, to many; not, I truft, to thee.
B 3
For, know'st thou not, or art thou loth to know, 135 The great decree, the counfel of the skies?
Deluge and conflagration, dreadful powers!
Prime minifters of vengeance! chain'd in caves
Diftinct, apart the giant furies roar;
Apart; or, fuch their horrid rage for ruin,
In mutual conflict would they rise, and wage
Eternal war, till one was quite devour'd.
But not for this, ordain'd their boundless rage;
When heaven's inferior inftruments of wrath,
War, famine, peftilence, are found too weak
To fcourge a world for her enormous crimes,
These are let loofe, alternate: down they rush,
Swift and tempeftuous, from th' eternal throne,
With irresistible commiffion arm'd,
The world, in vain corrected, to destroy,
And ease creation of the fhocking scene.
Seeft thou, Lorenzo! what depends on man?
The fate of nature; as for man, her birth.
Earth's actors change earth's tranfitory scenes,
And make creation groan with human guilt.
How muft it groan, in a new deluge whelm'd,
But not of waters! at the deftin'd hour,
By the loud trumpet fummon'd to the charge,
See, all the formidable fons of fire,
Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play 160
Their various engines; all at once difgorge
Their blazing magazines; and take, by storm,
This poor terreftrial citadel of man.
Amazing period! when each mountain-height
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