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 sooner fail, than cause to sigh.
A part how small 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 toss,
Loud sorrows 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 deferves 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 second 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 whofe thought can pierce beyond an hour! O thou! whate'er thou art, whose heart exults! Wouldst thou I thould congratulate thy fate?
I know thou wouldft; thy pride demands it from
Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs,
The falutary cenfure of a friend.
Thou happy wretch! by blindness thou art bleft;
By dotage dandled to perpetual finiles.
Know, fmiler at thy peril art thou pleas'd;
Thy pleasure is the promife of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor fevere,
But rifes in demand for her delay;
She makes a fcourge of past prosperity,
To fting thee more, and double thy diftrefs.
Lorenzo, fortune makes her court to thee,
Thy fond heart dances, while the Syren fings.
Dear is thy welfare; think me not unkind;
I would not damp, but to fecure thy joys.
Think not that fear is facred to the storm :
Stand on thy guard against the smiles of fate.
Is heaven tremendous in its frowns? Moft fure;
And in its favours formidable too :
Its favours here are trials, not rewards;
A call to duty, not difcharge from care;
And fhould alarm us, full as much as woes;
Awake us to their caufe and confequence;
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our defert;
Awe nature's tumult, and chastise her joys,
Left, while we clafp, we kill them; nay, invert
To worse than fimple mifery, their charms.
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bofom friendships to refentment four'd,
With rage envenom'd rise against our peace.
Beware what earth calls happinefs; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire.
Who builds on lefs than an immortal base,
Fond as he feems, condemns his joys to death.
Mine dy'd with thee, Philander! thy last figh 345
Diffolv'd the charm; the difenchanted earth
Loft all her luftre. Where her glittering towers ?
Her golden mountains, where? all darken'd down
To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears;
The great magician's dead! Thou poor, pale piece 350
Of out-caft earth, in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! Thy darling hope fo near,
(Long-labour'd prize !) O how ambition flush'd
Thy glowing cheek! Ambition truly great,
Of virtuous praife. Death's fubtle feed within
(Sly, treacherous miner!) working in the dark,
Smil'd at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon'd
The worm to riot on that rose so red,
Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!
Man's forefight is conditionally wife;
Lorenzo! wisdom into folly turns
Oft, the first inftant, its idea fair
To labouring thought is born. How dim our eye!
The present moment terminates our fight;
Clouds, thick as those on doomsday, drown the next; 365 We penetrate, we prophecy in vain.
Time is dealt out by particles; and each,
Ere mingled with the ftreaming fands of life,
By Fate's inviolable oath is fworn
Deep filence, "Where eternity begins."
By nature's law, what may be, may be now; There's no prerogative in human hours.
In human hearts what bolder thought can rise,
Than man's prefumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is fure to none; and yet on this perhaps,
This peradventure, infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant, we build
Our mountain hopes; fpin out eternal schemes,
As we the fatal fifters could out-spin,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.
Not ev'n Philander had bespoke his shroud :
Nor had he caufe; a warning was deny'd:
How many fall as fudden, not as fafe!
As fudden, though for years admonish'd home.
Of human ills the laft extreme beware,
Beware, Lorenzo! a flow fudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate furprize!
Be wife to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procraftination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vaft concerns of an eternal scene.
If not fo frequent, would not This be strange?
That 'tis fo frequent, This is ftranger ftill.
Of man's miraculous miftakes, 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 pride
On this reverfion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future felves applaud; 405
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they confign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone;
'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
All promife is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage: when young, indeed, In full content we, fometimes, nobly reft,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous fons, our fathers were more wife.
At thirty man fufpects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to refolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Refolves; and re-refolves; then dies the fame.
And why? Because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal, but Themfelves;
Themselves, when fome alarming shock of fate 425
Strikes through their wounded hearts the fudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon clofe; where, past the shaft, no trace is found.
As from the wing no fear the fky retains ;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
|