And is it in the flight of threescore years,
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting ner strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd, or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather or to drown a fly.
Where falls this censure? It o'erwhelms myself.
How was my heart incrusted by the world!
O how self-fettered was my grov'ling soul!
How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round
In silken thought, which reptile Fancy spun,
'Till darken'd Reason lay quite clouded o'er
With soft conceit of endless comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!
Night-visions may befriend (as sung above :)
Our waking dreams are fatal: how I dreamt
Of things impossible! (could sleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual, in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noontide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective !
'Till at Death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting, I woke, and found myself undone.
Where's now my phrenzy's pompous furniture ?
The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mould'ring mud, is royalty to me!
The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly bliss; it breaks at ev'ry breeze.
O ye bless'd scenes of permanent delight!
Full, above measure! lasting, beyond bound!
A perpetuity of bliss is bliss.
Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy,
And quite unparadise the realms of light?
Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres ;
The baleful influence of whose giddy dance
Sheds sad vicissitude on all beneath.
Here teems with revolutions ev'ry hour;
And rarely for the better; or the best,
More mortal than the common births of fate.
Each moment has its sickle, emulous
Of time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays
His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down
The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss.
Bliss! sublunary bliss!-proud words, and vain! Implicit treason to divine decree!
A bold invasion of the rights of heav'n!
I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace,
What darts of agony had miss'd my heart!
Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
The sun himself by thy permission shines,
And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his sphere.
Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust
Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean?
Why thy peculiar rancour wreak'd on me ?
Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?
Thy shaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.
O Cynthia! why so pale? dost thou lament
Thy wretched neighbour? grieve to see thy wheel
Of ceaseless change outwhirl'd in human life?
How wanes my borrow'd bliss! from Fortune's smile,
Precarious courtesy! not Virtue's sure,
Self-giv'n, solar, ray of sound delight.
In ev'ry vary'd posture, place, and hour,
How widow'd ev'ry thought of ev'ry joy!
Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace!
Through the dark postern of time long elaps'd,
Led softly, by the stillness of the night.
Led, like a murd❜rer (and such it proves!)
Strays (wretched rover!) o'er the pleasing past :
In quest of wretchedness, perversely strays :
And finds all desert now; and meets the ghosts
Of my departed joys, a num'rous train!
I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet comfort's blasted clusters I lament;
I tremble at the blessings once so dear;
And ev'ry pleasure pains me to the heart.
Yet why complain? or why complain for one?
Hangs out the sun his lustre but for me,
The single man? are angels all beside?
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 tle children, thán sure heirs of pain.
War, famine, pest, volcano, storm, and fire,
Intestine broils, Oppression, with her hear
Wrapt up in triple brass, besieg'd mankind :
God's image, disinherited of day,
Here plung'd in mines, forgets a sun was made;
There beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plough the winter's wave, and reap despair:
Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread, through realms their valour sav'd,
If so the tyrant, or his minions, doom:
Want, and incurable disease (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize
At once; and make á refuge of the grave:
How groaning hospitals eject their dead!
What numbers groan for sad admission there!
What numbers once in Fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold hand of Charity!
To shock us more, solicit it in vain!
Ye silken sons of pleasure! since in pains
You rue more modish visits, visit 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 sorrow seize on such alone:
Not Prudence can defend, or Virtue save;
Disease invades the chastest temperance;
And punishment the guiltless; and alarm
Thro' thickest shades pursues the fond of peace;
Man's caution often into danger turns,
And his guard falling, crushes him to death.
Not Happiness itself makes good her name ;
Our very wishes give us not our wish;
How distant oft the thing we dote on most,
From that for which we dote, felicity!
The smoothest course of nature has its pains,
And truest friends, through error, wound our rest;
Without misfortune, what calamities!
And what hostilities, without a foe!
Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth:
But endless is the list of human ills,
And sighs might sooner fail, than cause to sigh.
A part how small of the terraqueous globe
Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,
Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands;
Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death.
Such is earth's melancholy map! But far
More sad! this earth is a true map of man :
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights
To Woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss;
Loud sorrows howl; envenom'd passions bite;
Ravenous calamities our vitals seize,
And threat'ning Fate wide-opens to devour.
What then am I, who sorrow for myself?
In age, in infancy, from others' aid
Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind.
That, Nature's first, last lesson to mankind:
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels;
More gen'rous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts,
And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.
Nor virtue, more than Prudence, bids me give
Swol'n thought a second channel; who divide,
They weaken too, the torrent of their grief:
Take then, O world, thy much-indebted tear.
How sad a sight is human happiness
To those whose thought can pierce beyond an hour!
O thou! whate'er thou art, whose heart exults?
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