Thy days of health, and nights of sleep; thy toils,
By danger dignified, yet guiltless: hopes
Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave,
With cross and garland over its green turf,
And thy grandchildren's love for epitaph.
This do I see,-and then I look within.".
O THOU great arbiter of life and death,
Nature's immortal immaterial Sun!
Whose all-prolific beam late called me forth
From darkness,-teeming darkness, where I lay
The worm's inferior, and, in rank, beneath
The dust I tread on,-high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,
And triumph in existence: and couldst know
No motive but my bliss; and hast ordain'd
A rise in blessing! with the patriarch's joy
Thy call I follow to the land unknown;
I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust;
Or life, or death is equal; neither weighs;
All weight in this,-Ò let me live to thee.
TO-MORROW! didst thou say?
Methought I heard Horatio say To-morrow.
Go to,-I will not hear of it,-To-morrow!
'Tis a sharper, who stakes his penury
Against thy plenty ;-who takes thy ready cash,
And pays thee nought, but wishes, hopes, and promises,
The currency of idiots. Injurious bankrupt,
That gulls the easy creditor!-To-morrow!
It is a period nowhere to be found
In all the hoary registers of time,
Unless perchance in the fool's calendar.
Wisdom disclaims the word, nor holds society
With those who own it. No, my Horatio,
'Tis Fancy's child, and Folly is its father;
Wrought of such stuff as dreams are; and baseless
As the fantastic visions of the evening.
But soft, my friend,-arrest the present moments;
For, be assured, they all are arrant telltales;
And, though their flight be silent, and their path
Trackless as the wing'd couriers of the air,
They post to heaven and there record thy folly;
Because, though station'd on the important watch,
Thou, like a sleeping faithless sentinel,
Didst let them pass unnoticed, unimproved.
And know, for that thou slumberest on the guard,
Thou shalt be made to answer at the bar
For every fugitive; and, when thoù thus
Shalt stand impleaded at the high tribunal
Of hoodwink'd Justice, who shall tell thy audit?
Then stay the present instant, dear Horatio;
Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings.
"Tis of more worth than kingdoms! far more precious
Than all the crimson treasures of life's fountain !-
Oh! let it not elude thy grasp: but, like
The good old patriarch upon record,
Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.
ON BEING PREPARED FOR DEATH.
AND now, Lorenzo, dost thou wrap thy soul
In soft security, because unknown
Which moment is commission'd to destroy?
In death's uncertainty the danger lies.
Is death uncertain? Therefore thou be fit;
Fix'd as a sentinel, all eye, all ear,
All expectation of the coming foe,
Rouse, stand in arms, nor lean against thy spear;
Lest slumber steal one moment o'er thy soul,
And fate surprise thee nodding. Watch, be strong!
Thus give each day the merit and renown
Of dying well: though doom'd but once to die.
Nor let life's period, hidden, (as from most,)
Hide too from thee the precious use of life.
THE chamber, where the good man meets his fate,
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Fly, ye profane! If not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance,
That threw in this Bethesda your disease:
If unrestored by this despair your cure,
For here resistless demonstration dwells.
A deathbed's a detector of the heart.
Here tired Dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace, that mistress of the scene!
Here real and apparent are the same.
You see the man; you see his hold on heaven;
If sound his virtue,-as Philemon's sound.
Heaven waits not the last moment; owns her friends
On this side death; and points them out to men,-
A lecture silent, but of sovereign power!
To vice confusion, and to virtue peace.
Whatever farce the boastful hero plays,
Virtue alone has majesty in death,
And greater still the more the tyrant frowns.
DISSOLUTION OF ALL THINGS.
THE cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind.
WHAT does not fade? The tower, that long hath stood The crush of thunder, and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruin o'er its base:
And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass
Descend the Babylonian spires are sunk:
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires crush by their own weight.
This huge rotundity we tread grows old:
And all those worlds that roll around the sun,-
The sun himself,-shall die; and ancient night
Again involve the desolate abyss:
Till the great Father, through the lifeless gloom,
Extend his arm, to light another world,
And bid new planets roll by other laws. Armstrong.
THE world a palace was without a guest,
Till one appears, that must excel the rest:
One-like the Author, whose capacious mind
Might, by the glorious work, the Maker find;
Might measure heaven, and give each star a name;
With art and courage the rough ocean tame;
Over the globe with swelling sails might go,
And, that 'tis round, by his experience know;
Make strongest beasts obedient to his will,
And serve his use, the fertile earth to till.
When, by his word, God had accomplish'd all,
Man to create, he did a council call,
Employ'd his hand to give the dust he took
A graceful figure and majestic look;
With his own breath, conveyed into his breast
Life, and a soul fit to command the rest;
Worthy alone to celebrate his name
For such a gift, and tell from whence it came.
Birds sing his praises in a wilder note,
But not with lasting numbers, and with thought,—
Man's great prerogative !-But above all,
His grace abounds in his new favourite's fall.
If he create, it is a world he makes ;
If he be angry, the creation shakes;
From his just wrath our guilty parents fled;
He cursed the earth, but bruised the serpent's head.
Waller.
BEAUTIFUL beings! amidst flowers and shades,
And birds, and happy creatures of all kinds,
Rejoicing; but more in yourselves,-in minds
Sinless, which mutual love and bliss pervades,
And gratitude to heaven!-Ah! wherefore fades
That bloom of being? Wherefore to the winds
Thrown that frail pile of blessedness? What finds
Your vain ambition, that so soon upbraids
Your Maker as unkind? Say, will the snake,
Your wily counsellor, conduct you through
The perplex'd windings of life's thorny brake;
Or that false fruit,-what it profess'd to do,-
Your thirst to know, with wholesome beverage, slake?
Ah! hapless pair, what will become of you?
Morehead.
MAN'S ABERRATION FROM GOD.
THE rolling planets, and the glorious sun,
Still keep that order, which they first begun :
They their first lesson constantly repeat,
Which their Creator, as a law, did set.
Above, below, exactly all obey:
But wretched men have found another way.
Knowledge of good and evil, as at first,
(That vain persuasion,) keeps them still accurst.
The sacred word refusing as a guide,
Slaves they become to luxury and pride.
As clocks, remaining in the skilful hand
Of some great master, at the figure stand,
But, when abroad, neglected they do go,
At random strike, and the false hour do show ;
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