How differ worldly wisdom, and divine?
Juft as the waning, and the waxing moon.
More empty worldly wisdom every day;
And every day more fair her rival fhines.
When later, there 's lefs time to play the fool.
Soon our whole term for wisdom is expir'd
(Thou krow'ft fhe calls no council in the grave):
And everlasting fool is writ in fire,
Or real wisdom wafts us to the skies.
As worldly schemes resemble Sibyls' leaves, The good man's days to Sibyls' books compare,
(In antient story read, thou know'ft the tale) In price still rifing, as in number less,
Ineftimable quite his final hour.
For That who thrones can offer, offer thrones ;
Infolvent worlds the purchase cannot pay.
"Oh let me die his death!" all nature cries.
"Then live his life."-All nature faulters there.
Our great phyfician daily to confult,
To commune with the grave, our only cure.
What grave prefcribes the best?--A friend's; and yet, From a friend's grave how foon we difengage!
Ev'n to the dearest, as his marble, cold.
Why are friends ravisht from us? 'Tis to bind,
By foft affection's tyes, on human hearts,
The thought of death, which reason, too fupine,
Or mifemploy'd, fo rarely fastens there.
Nor reafon, nor affection, no, nor both
Combin'd, can break the witchcrafts of the world.
Behold, th' inexorable hour at hand!
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Behold, th' inexorable hour forgot!
And to forget it, the chief aim of life,
Though well to ponder it, is life's chief end.
Is death, that ever threatening, ne'er remote,
That all-important, and that only fure,
(Come when he will) an unexpected gueft?
Nay, though invited by the loudeft calls
Of blind imprudence, unexpected still ?
Though numerous messengers are sent before,
To warn his great arrival. What the cause,
The wondrous caufe, of this myfterious ill?
All heaven looks down astonish'd at the fight.
Is it, that life has fown her joys fo thick,
We can't thruft in a fingle care between ?
Is it, that life has fuch a fwarm of cares,
The thought of death can't enter for the throng?
Is it, that time fteals on with downy feet,
Nor wakes indulgence from her golden dream?
To-day is fo like yesterday, it cheats;
We take the lying fifter for the fame.
Life glides away, Lorenzo! like a brook ;
For ever changing, unperceiv'd the change.
In the fame brook none ever bath'd him twice:
To the fame life none ever twice awoke.
We call the brook the fame; the fame we think
Our life, though still more rapid in its flow;
Nor mark the much, irrevocably laps'd,
And mingled with the fea. Or fhall we say
(Retaining still the brook to bear us on)
That life is like a veffel on the stream?
In life embark'd, we smoothly down the tide
Of time defcend, but not on time intent;
Amus'd, unconscious of the gliding wave;
Till on a fudden we perceive a fhock;
We start, awake, look out; what fee we there?
Our brittle bark is burst on Charon's fhore.
Is this the cause death flies all human thought?
Or is it judgment, by the will ftruck blind,
That domineering mistress of the foul!
Like him so strong, by Dalilah the fair?
Or is it fear turns startled reafon back,
From looking down a precipice so steep?
'Tis dreadful; and the dread is wifely plac'd,
By nature, confcious of the make of man.
A dreadful friend it is, a terror kind,
A flaming sword to guard the tree of life.
By that unaw'd, in life's most smiling hour,
The good man would repine; would fuffer joys,
And burn impatient for his promis'd skies.
The bad, on each punctilious piqué of pride,
Or gloom of humour, would give rage the rein;
Bound o'er the barrier, rush into the dark,
And mar the fchemes of Providence below.
What groan was that, Lorenzo ?-Furies! rife; And drown in your less execrable yell Britannia's fhame. There took her gloomy flight, On wing impetuous, a black fullen foul, Blafted from hell, with horrid luft of death. Thy friend, the brave, the gallant Altamont, So call'd, fo thought-And then he fled the field. 440
Lefs bafe the fear of death, than fear of life.
O Britain, infamous for fuicide!
An island in thy manners, far disjoin'd
From the whole world of rationals befide!
In ambient waves plunge thy polluted head,
Wafh the dire ftain, nor fhock the continent.
But thou be fhock'd, while I detect the cause
Of felf-affault, expofe the monfter's birth,
And bid abhorrence hifs it round the world.
Blame not thy clime, nor chide the diftant fun;
The fun is innocent, thy clime abfolv'd:
Immoral climes kind nature never made.
The caufe I fing, in Eden might prevail,
And proves, It is thy folly, not thy fate.
The foul of man (let man in homage bow,
Who names his foul), a native of the skies!
High-born, and free, her freedom should maintain,
Unfold, unmortgag'd for earth's little bribes.
Th' illuftrious ftranger, in this foreign land,
Like ftrangers, jealous of her dignity,
Studious of home, and ardent to return,
Of earth fufpicious, earth's inchanted cup
With cool referve light touching, should indulge,
On immortality, her godlike tafte,
There take large draughts; make her chief banquet
But fome reject this fuftenance divine;
To beggarly vile appetites defcend;
Afk alms of earth for guests that came from heaven: Sink into flaves; and fell, for present hire,
Their rich reversion, and (what shares its fate)
Their native freedom, to the prince who sways
This nether world. And when his payments fail,
When his foul basket gorges them no more,
Or their pall'd palates loath the basket full;
Are instantly, with wild demoniac rage,
For breaking all the chains of Providence,
And bursting their confinement; though fast barr'd
By laws divine and human; guarded strong
With horrors doubled to defend the pass,
The blackeft, nature, or dire guilt can raise;
And moated round with fathomless deftruction,
Sure to receive, and whelm them in their fall.
Such, Britons! is the cause, to you unknown,
Or worse, o'erlook'd; o'erlook'd by magiftrates,
Thus criminals themfelves. I grant the deed
Is madness; but the madness of the heart.
And what is that? Our utmost bound of guilt.
A fenfual, unreflecting life, is big
With monftrous births, and Suicide, to crown
The black infernal brood. The bold to break
Heaven's law fupreme, and desperately rush
Through facred nature's murder, on their own,
Because they never think of death, they die.
'Tis equally man's duty, glory, gain,
At once to fhun, and meditate, his end.
When by the bed of languishment we fit,
(The feat of wisdom! if our choice, not fate)
Or, o'er our dying friends, in anguish hang,
Wipe the cold dew, or ffy the finking head,
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