With foft conceit of endless comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!
Night-vifions may befriend (as fung above) :
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt
Of things impoffible! (Could sleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the toffing wave!
Eternal funshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective!
Till at death's toll, whofe reftlefs iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Where now my phrenzy's pompous furniture ?
The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!
The Spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly blifs; it breaks at every breeze.
O ye bleft fcenes of permanent delight!
Full, above measure! lafting, beyond bound!
A perpetuity of blifs is blifs.
Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghaftly thought would drink up all your joy, 185
And quite unparadife the realms of light.
Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres ;
The baleful influence of whose giddy dance
Sheds fad viciffitude on all beneath.
Here teems with revolutions every hour;
And rarely for the better; or the beft,
More mortal than the common births of fate.
Each moment has its fickle, emulous
Of Time's enormous fcythe, whofe ample fweep
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays 295
His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of sweet domeftic comfort, and cuts down
The faireft bloom of fublunary bliss.
Blifs! fublunary blifs !-proud words, and vain! Implicit treafon to divine decree !
A bold invasion of the rights of heaven!
I clafp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace!
What darts of agony had mifs'd my heart!
Death! great proprietor of all! tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars. The fun himself by thy permiffion fhines; And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his sphere. Amid fuch mighty plunder, why exhaust Thy partial quiver on a mark fo mean? Why thy peculiar rancour wreak'd on me? Infatiate archer! could not one fuffice?
Thy fhaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was flain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.
O Cynthia! why fo pale? Doft thou lament
Thy wretched neighbour? Grieve to see thy wheel
Of ceaseless change outwhirl'd in human life?
How wanes my borrow'd blifs! from fortunes fmile,
Precarious courtesy! not virtue's fure,
f-given, folar ray of found delight.
In every vary'd posture, place, and hour,
How widow'd every thought of every joy!
Thought, bufy thought! too bufy for my peace!
Through the dark poftern of time long elaps'd,
Led foftly, by the ftillness of the night,
Led, like a murderer, (and such it proves !)
Strays (wretched rover!) o'er the pleasing past;
In queft of wretchedness pervefely strays;
And finds all defart now; and meets the ghofts
Of my departed joys; a numerous train!
I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet comfort's blafted clusters I lament;
I tremble at the bleffings once fo dear;
And every pleasure pains me to the heart.
Yet why complain? or why complain for one?
Hangs out the fun his luftre but for me,
The fingle man? Are angels all beside ?
I mourn for millions: 'Tis the common lot;
In this fhape, or in that, has fate entail'd
The mother's throes on all of woman born,
Not more the children, than fure heirs, of pain.
War, Famine, Peft, Volcano, Storm, and Fire,
Inteftine broils, Oppression, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brafs, befiege mankind.
God's image disinherited of day,
Here, plung'd in mines, forgets a fun was made.
There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plow the winter's wave, and reap despair.
Some, for hard mafters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread through realms their valour fav'd,
If fo the tyrant, or his minion, doom,
Want, and incurable difeafe, (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorfeless seize
At once; and make a refuge of the grave.
How groaning hospitals eject their dead!
What numbers groan for fad admiffion there!
What numbers, once in fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold hand of charity!
To fhock us more, folicit it in vain!
Ye filken fons of pleasure! fince in pains
You rue more modifh vifits, visit here,
And breathe from your debauch: give, and reduce
Surfeit's dominion o'er you: but fo great
Your impudence, you blush at what is right.
Happy! did forrow feize on such alone.
Not prudence can defend, or virtue save;
Difeafe invades the chastest temperance;
And punishment the guiltless; and aların,
Through 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 diftant oft the thing we doat on most,
From that for which we doat, felicity!
The Smootheft course of nature has its pains;
And trueft friends, through error, wound our reft.
Without misfortune, what calamities [
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 fooner fail, than cause to figh.
A part how finall 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 forrows 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 first, 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 thofe whofe thought can pierce beyond an hour! O thou! whate'er thou art, whofe heart exults! Wouldst thou I fhould congratulate thy fate?
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