With foft conceit of endless comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!
Night-vifions may befriend (as fung above) :
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt
Of things impoffible! (Could fleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the toffing wave!
Eternal funfhine in the ftorms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perfpective!
Till at death's toll, whofe reftlefs iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Where now my phrenzy's pompous furniture ?
The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!
The fpider's moft attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly blifs; it breaks at every breeze.
O ye bleft scenes of permanent delight!
Full, above measure! lasting, beyond bound!
A perpetuity of blifs is blifs.
Could you, fo rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy, 185
And quite unparadise the realms of light.
Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres;
The baleful influence of whofe giddy dance
Sheds fad viciffitude on all beneath.
Here teems with revolutions every hour;
And rarely for the better; or the beft,
More mortal than the common births of fate.
Each moment has its fickle, emulous
Of Time's enormous fcythe, whose ample sweep
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays 295
His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of fweet domeftic comfort, and cuts down
The fairest bloom of fublunary bliss.
Blifs! fublunary blifs !-proud words, and vain! Implicit treafon to divine decree !
A bold invafion of the rights of heaven!
I clafp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace!
What darts of agony had mifs'd my heart!
Death! great proprietor of all! tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
The fun himself by thy permiffion fhines;
And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his fphere.
Amid fuch mighty plunder, why exhaust
Thy partial quiver on a mark fo mean?
Why thy peculiar rancour wreak'd on me
Infatiate archer! could not one fuffice?
Thy fhaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was flain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.
O Cynthia why fo pale? Doft thou lament
Thy wretched neighbour? Grieve to fee thy wheel
Of ceafelefs change outwhirl'd in human life?
How wanes my borrow'd blifs! from fortunes smile,
Precarious courtesy! not virtue 's fure,
Self-given, folar ray of found delight.
In every vary'd posture, place, and hour,
How widow'd every thought of every joy!
Thought, bufy thought! too busy for my peace!
Through the dark postern of time long elaps'd,
Led foftly, by the ftillness of the night,
Led, like a murderer, (and fuch it proves !)
Strays (wretched rover !) o'er the pleafing paft;
In queft of wretchednefs pervefely strays;
And finds all defart now; and meets the ghofts
Of my departed joys; a numerous train!
I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet comfort's blafted clufters I lament;
I tremble at the bleffings once fo dear;
And every pleasure pains me to the heart.
Yet why complain? or why complain for one? Hangs out the fun his luftre but for me,
The fingle man? Are angels all befide?
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.
War, Famine, Peft, Volcano, Storm, and Fire,
Inteftine broils, Oppression, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brafs, befiege mankind.
God's image difinherited of day,
Here, plung'd in mines, forgets a fun was made.
There, beings deathlefs as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plow the winter's wave, and reap despair.
Some, for hard mafters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread through realms their valour fav'd,
If fo the tyrant, or his minion, doom.
Want, and incurable difeafe, (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorfeless feize
At once; and make a refuge of the grave.
How groaning hofpitals eject their dead!
What numbers groan for fad admiffion there!
What numbers, once in fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold hand of charity!
To fhock us more, folicit it in vain!
Ye filken fons of pleasure! fince in pains
You rue more modifh vifits, vifit here,
And breathe from your debauch: give, and reduce
Surfeit's dominion o'er you: but so great
Your impudence, you blush at what is right.
Happy! did forrow feize on such alone.
Not prudence can defend, or virtue save;
Disease invades the chafteft temperance;
And punishment the guiltless; and alarm,
Through thickest fhades, purfues the fond of peace.
Man's caution often into danger turns;
And his guard, falling, crushes him to death.
Not happiness itfelf makes good her name;
Our very wishes give us not our wish.
How diftant oft the thing we doat on most,
From that for which we doat, felicity!
The Smoothest courfe of nature has its pains;
And trueft friends, through error, wound our rest.
Without misfortune, what calamities!
And what hoftilities, without a foe!
Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.
But endless is the lift of human ills,
And fighs might fooner fail, than cause to figh.
A part how fmall of the terraqueous globe
Is tenanted by man! the reft a waste,
Rocks, defarts, frozen feas, and burning fands:
Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, ftings, and death.
Such is earth's melancholy map! but, far
More fad this earth is a true map of man.
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights
To woe's wide empire; where deep troubles tofs,
Loud forrows howl, invenom'd passions bite,
Ravenous calamities our vitals feize,
And threatening fate wide opens to devour.
What then am I, who forrow for myself?
In age, in infancy, from others' aid
Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind.
That, nature's firft, last lesson to mankind;
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels.
More generous forrow, while it finks, exalts;
And confcious virtue mitigates the pang.
Nor virtue, more than prudence, bids me give
Swoln thought a fecond channel; who divide,
They weaken too, the torrent of their grief.
Take then, O World! thy much-indebted tear:
How fad a fight is human happiness,
To those whose thought can pierce beyond an hour! O thou! whate'er thou art, whofe heart exults! Wouldst thou I fhould congratulate thy fate?
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