THE

COMPLAINT.

NIGHT THE FIRST.

ON

LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

то

THE RIGHT HON. ARTHUR ONSLOW,

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

IR'D Nature's fweet reftorer, balmy Sleep!

TH

He, like the world, his ready vifit pays

Where Fortune fmiles; the wretched he forfakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.
From fhort (as ufual) and disturb'd repose,

I wake: How happy they, who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infeft the grave.
I wake, emerging from a fea of dreams

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Tumultuous; where my wreck'd defponding thought, 10 From wave to wave of fancied mifery,

At random drove, her helm of reafon loft.
Though now reftor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) feverer for fevere.

The Day too fhort for my distress; and Night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,

Is funthine to the colour of my fate.

Night, fable goddess! from her ebon throne, In raylefs majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden fceptre o'er a lumbering world. Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor liftening ear, an object finds; Creation fleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse Of life ftood ftill, and nature made a pause; An awful paufe! prophetic of her end. And let her prophecy be foon fulfill'd; Fate! drop the curtain; I can lofe no more. Silence and Darkness! folemn fifters! twins From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought! To Reason, and on Reafon build Refolve, (That column of true majesty in man) Affift me: I will thank you in the grave;

The grave, your kingdom: There this frame fhall fa A victim facred to your dreary fhrine.

But what are ye?—

Thou, who didft put to flight

Primæval Silence, when the morning stars,

Exulting, fhouted o'er the rifing ball;

O Thou, whofe word from folid darkness struck

That fpark, the fun; ftrike wisdom from

my

foul; 4

M

3

My foul, which flies to Thee, her truft, her treasure,
As mifers to their gold, while others reft.

Through this opaque of Nature, and of Soul,
This double night, tranfmit one pitying ray,
To lighten, and to chear. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe)
Lead it through various fcenes of Life and Death;
And from each scene, the noblest truths inspire.
Nor lefs infpire my Conduct, than my Song ;
Teach my best reason, reafon; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm refolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear :
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

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The bell ftrikes One. We take no note of time 55 But from its lofs. To give it then a tongue,

Is wife in man.

As if an angel spoke,

I feel the folemn found. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours:

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. 60 It is the fignal that demands dispatch:

How much is to be done? My hopes and fears

Start up

alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down-On what? a fathomless abyss;

A dread eternity! how furely mine!

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And can eternity belong to me,

Poor penfioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how auguft,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How paffing wonder He, who made him fuch!

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70

Who

Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From different natures marvelously mixt,
Connexion exquifite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in Being's endless chain!
Midway from Nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, fully'd, and absorpt!
Though fully'd and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! infect infinite!

A worm! a god!—I tremble at myself,
And in myself am loft! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, furpriz'd, aghaft,
And wondering at her own: How reafon reels!
O what a miracle to man is man,

Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported, and alarm'd !

What can preferve my life! or what destroy!
An angel's arm can't fnatch me from the
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

grave;

'Tis paft conjecture; all things rise in proof: While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread, What though my foul fantastic measures trod O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathlefs woods; or, down the craggy fteep Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool; Or fcal'd the cliff; or danc'd on hollow winds, With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain? Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her natu Of fubtler effence than the trodden clod;

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Active, aërial, towering, unconfin'd,

Unfetter'd with her grofs companions fall.

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Ev'n filent night proclaims my soul immortal :
Ev'n filent night proclaims eternal day.
For human weal, heaven husbands all events;
Dull fleep instructs, nor fport vain dreams in vain.
Why then their loss deplore, that are not lost?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,
In infidel diftrefs? Are Angels there?

Slumbers, rak'd up in dust, ethereal fire?

They live! they greatly live a life on earth
Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an eye
Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall

On me, more juftly number'd with the dead.
This is the defart, this the folitude:
How populous, how vital, is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,
The vale funereal, the fad cypress gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty shades!
All, all on earth, is Shadow, all beyond
Is Subftance; the reverse is folly's creed :
How folid all, where change shall be no more!
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,

The twilight of our day, the vestibule;

Life's theatre as yet is fhut, and death,
Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar,
This grofs impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryos of existence free,
From real life, but little more remote
Is he, not yet a candidate for light,

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