CONTAINING, AMONG OTHER THINGS,
I. A MORAL Survey of the NOCTURNAL Heavens. II. A NIGHT-ADDRESS to the DEITY.
HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE,
ONE OF HIS MAJESTY's PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE.
"Fatis contraria fata rependens."
S when a traveller, a long day past
In painful fearch of what he cannot find,
At night's approach, content with the next cot,
There ruminates, a while, his labour loft;
Then chears his heart with what his fate affords,
And chaunts his fonnet to deceive the time,
Till the due feafon calls him to repofe :
Thus I, long-travel'd in the ways of men,
And dancing, with the rest, the giddy maze,
Where difappointment smiles at hope's career;
Warn'd by the languor of life's evening ray,
At length have hous'd me in an humble shed;
Where, future wandering banish'd from my thought,
And waiting, patient, the sweet hour of rest,
I chace the moments with a serious fong.
Song fooths our pains; and age has pains to footh.
When age, care, crime, and friends embrac'd at heart,
Torn from my bleeding breast, and death's dark shade,
Which hovers o'er me, quench th' ethereal fire;
Canft thou, O Night! indulge one labour more?
One labour more indulge! then fleep, my strain !
Till, haply, wak'd by Raphael's golden lyre,
Where night, death, age, care, crime, and forrow, cease;
To bear a part in everlasting lays;
Though far, far higher fet, in aim, I trust,
Symphonious to this humble prelude here.
Has not the Mufe afferted pleasures pure,
Like thofe above; exploding other joys?
Weigh what was urg'd, Lorenzo! fairly weigh;
And tell me, haft thou cause to triumph still ?
I think, thou wilt forbear a boast so bold.
But if, beneath the favour of mistake,
Thy fmile 's fincere; not more fincere can be
Lorenzo's fmile, than my compaffion for him.
The fick in body call for aid; the fick
In mind are covetous of more disease;
And when at worf, they dream themselves quite well.
To know ourselves difeas'd, is half our cure.
When nature's blush by cuftom is wip'd off,
And conscience, deaden'd by repeated strokes,
Has into manners naturaliz'd our crimes;
The curfe of curfes is, our curfe to love;
To triumph in the blackness of our guilt
(As Indians glory in the deepest jet),
And throw afide our senses with our peace.
But grant no guilt, no fhame, no least alloy;
Grant joy and glory quite unfully'd shone;
Yet, ftill, it ill deferves Lorenzo's heart.
No joy, no glory, glitters in thy fight,
But, through the thin partition of an hour,
I fee its fables wove by deftiny;
And that in forrow bury'd; this, in shame;
While howling furies ring the doleful knell;
And confcience, now so soft thou scarce canft hear
Her whisper, echoes her eternal peal.
Where, the prime actors of the last year's scene ;
Their port fo proud, their buskin, and their plume?
How many fleep, who kept the world awake
With luftre, and with noife! has death proclaim'd
A truce, and hung his fated lance on high?
'Tis brandish'd ftill; nor fhall the present year
Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or spread of feeble life a thinner fall.
But needlefs monuments to wake the thought;
Life's gayeft fcenes fpeak man's mortality;
Though in a style more florid, full as plain,
As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs.
What are our nobleft ornaments, but deaths
Turn'd flatterers of life, in paint, or marble,
The well-ftain'd canvas, or the featur'd stone ?
Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene.
Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.
"Profeft diverfions! cannot these escape?"-
Far from it: these present us with a shroud;
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And talk of death, like garlands o'er a grave.
As fome bold plunderers, for bury'd wealth,
We ranfack tombs for paftime; from the dust
Call up the fleeping hero; bid him tread
The fcene for our amusement: how like gods
We fit; and, wrapt in immortality,
Shed generous tears on wretches born to die;
Their fate deploring, to forget our own!
What all the pomps and triumphs of our lives,
But legacies in bloffom? Our lean foil,
Luxuriant grown, and rank in vanities,
From friends interr'd beneath; a rich manure !
Like other worms, we banquet on the dead;
Like other worms, fhall we crawl on, nor know
Our prefent frailties, or approaching fate?
Lorenzo! fuch the glories of the world!
What is the world itself? Thy world—a grave.
Where is the duft that has not been alive?
The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors;
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the cieling of her fleeping fons.
O'er devastation we blind revels keep;
Whole bury'd towns fupport the dancer's heel.
The moist of human frame the fun exhales;
Winds fcatter through the mighty void the dry;
Earth repoffeffes part of what she gave,
And the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;
Each element partakes our scatter'd spoils;
As nature, wide, our ruins spread: man's death
| Inhabits all things, but the thought of man.
Nor man alone; his breathing bust expires, His tomb is mortal; empires die: where, now, The Roman? Greek? They stalk, an empty name! Yet few regard them in this useful light;
Though half our learning is their epitaph.
When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought,
That loves to wander in thy funless realms,
O death! I stretch my view: what visions rise!
What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine!
In wither'd laurels glide before my fight!
What lengths of far-fam'd ages, billow'd high
With human agitation, roll along
In unsubstantial images of air!
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause,
With penitential afpect, as they pafs,
All point at earth, and hiss at human pride,
The wisdom of the wife, and prancings of the great.
But, O Lorenzo! far the rest above,
Of ghastly nature, and enormous size,
One form affaults my fight, and chills my blood,
And shakes my frame. Of one departed world
I fee the mighty fhadow: oozy wreath
And difmal fea-weed crown her; o'er her urn
Reclin'd, the weeps her defolated realms,
And bloated fons; and, weeping, prophefies
Another's diffolution, foon, in flames.
But, like Caffandra, prophefies in vain ;
In vain, to many; not, I trust, to thee.
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