And throw afide our fenfes with our peace.
But grant no guilt, no fhame, no least alloy ;
Grant joy and glory quite unfully'd fhone;
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 destiny;
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 prefent year
Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or fpread of feeble life a thinner fall.
But needlefs monuments to wake the thought;
Life's gayeft fcenes speak 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;
B 2
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 scene for our amusement: how like gods
We fit; and, wrapt in immortality,
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 furface shakes,
And is the cieling of her fleeping fons.
O'er devastation we blind revels keep;
Whole bury'd towns support 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 fpread: 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 ftalk, 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 ftretch my view: what visions rife!
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 applaufe, 120 With penitential afpect, as they país,
All point at earth, and hifs at human pride,
The wisdom of the wife, and prancings of the great.
But, O Lorenzo! far the rest above,
Of ghaftly nature, and enormous fize,
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, fhe 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 truft, to thee.
For, know'st thou not, or art thou loth to know, 135 The great decree, the counfel of the skies?
Deluge and conflagration, dreadful powers!
Prime ministers of vengeance! chain'd in caves
Distinct, apart the giant furies roar;
Apart; or, such their horrid rage for ruin,
In mutual conflict would they rife, and wage
Eternal war, till one was quite devour'd.
But not for this, ordain'd their boundless rage;
When heaven's inferior inftruments of wrath,
War, famine, peftilence, are found too weak
To fcourge a world for her enormous crimes,
Thefe are let loose, alternate: down they rush,
Swift and tempeftuous, from th' eternal throne,
With irrefiftible commiffion arm'd,
The world, in vain corrected, to destroy,
And eafe creation of the fhocking scene.
Seeft thou, Lorenzo! what depends on man?
The fate of nature; as for man, her birth.
Earth's actors change earth's tranfitory scenes,
And make creation groan with human guilt.
How muft it groan, in a new deluge whelm'd,
But not of waters! at the deftin'd hour,
By the loud trumpet fummon'd to the charge,
See, all the formidable fons of fire,
Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play 160
Their various engines; all at once difgorge
Their blazing magazines; and take, by storm,
This poor terreftrial citadel of man.
Amazing period! when each mountain-height
Out-burns Vefuvius; rocks eternal pour
Their melted mafs, as rivers once they pour'd;
Stars rush; and final ruin fiercely drives
Her plowshare o'er creation!-while aloft,
More than aftonishment! if more can be!
Far other firmament than e'er was feen,
Than e'er was thought by man! far other ftars!
Stars animate, that govern these of fire;
Far other fun !-A fun, O how unlike
The Babe at Bethlem! how unlike the Man,
That groan'd on Calvary !-Yet He it is;
That Man of forrows! O how chang'd! what pomp!
In grandeur terrible, all heaven defcends!
And gods, ambitious, triumph in his train.
A fwift archangel, with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds, that darken and difgrace
The fcene divine, fweeps ftars and funs afide.
And now, all drofs remov'd, heaven's own pure day,
Full on the confines of our æther, flames.
While (dreadful contraft!) far, how far beneath!
Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing seas,
And ftorms fulphureous; her voracious jaws
Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey,
Lorenzo! welcome to this fcene; the last
In nature's courfe; the firft in wifdom's thought.
This strikes, if aught can ftrike thee; this awakes 190
The moft fupine; this fnatches man from death.
Roufe, roufe, Lorenzo, then, and follow me,
Where truth, the most momentous man can hear,
Loud calls my foul, and ardour wings her flight.
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