With him I left the cup, to teach his mind
That heav'n can blefs, if mortals will be kind.
Confcious of wanting worth, he views the bowl,THE bell frikes One. We take no note of Time
And feels compaffion touch his grateful foul.
Thus artifts melt the fullen ore of lead,
With heaping coals of tire upon its head;
In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow,
And, loofe from drofs, the filver runs below.
Long had our pious friend in virtue trod,
But now the child half-wean'd his heart from
(Child of his age) for him he liv'd in pain, [God;
And meatur'd back his fteps to earth again.
To what exceffes had his dotage run!
But God, to fave the father, took the fon.
To all but thee in fits he feem'd to go;
And 'twas my miniftry to deal the blow.
The poor fond parent humbl'd in the duft,
Now owns in tears the punishment was juft.
But how had all his fortunes felt a wrack,
Had that falfe fervant fped in fafety back!
This night his treafur'd heaps he meant to fteal,
And what a fund of charity would fail!
Thus Heav'n inftructs thy mind: this trial o'er,
Depart in peace, refign, and fin no more.
On founding pinions here the youth withdrew;
The fage ftood wond'ring as the feraph flew.
Thus look'd Elifha, when, to mount on high,
His mafter took the chariot of the fky:
The fiery pomp afcending, left the view;
The prophet gaz'd, and wifh'd to follow too.
The bending hermit here a pray'r begun :
Lord! as in heav'n, on earth thy will be done:
Then gladly turning, fought his ancient place,
And pafs'd a life of piety and peace.
§ 69. Sleep. YOUNG.
TIR'D Nature's fweet reftorer, balmy Sleep; He, like the world, his ready vifit pays Where Fortune fimiles! the wretched he forfakes! Sy ift on his downy pinion flies from woe, And lights on lids unfully'd with a tear.
$70. Address to the Deity. YOUNG. THOU, who didft put to flight
Primæval Silence, when the morning stars, Exulting, shouted o'er the riling ball; O THOU, whofe word from folid darknefs ftruck That fpaik, the fun, ftrike wisdom from my foul; My foul which flies to Thee, her truft,her treature, As mifers to their gold, while others reft.
Thro' this opaque of Nature and of Soul, This double night, tranfmit one pitying ray, To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind (A mind that fain would wander from its woe) Lead it thro' various fcenes of Life and Death; And from each feene the nobleft truths infpire. Nor les infpire my Conduct than my Song; Teach my belt reafon, reafon; my beft will Teach reftitude; and fix my firm refolve Wifdom 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.
But from its lofs. To give it then a tongue Is wife in man. As if an angel fooke, I feel the folemn found. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours: [flood. Where are they? With the years beyond the 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 harrow verge Look down-on what? a fathomlefs abyfs; A dread eternity! how furcly mine! And can eternity belong to me,
Poor penfioner on the bounties of an hour!
$72. Reflection on Man. YOUNG. HOW poor, how rich, how abject, how auguft, How complicate, how wonderful is man! How paffing wonder He who made him fuch Who centred in our make fuch ftrange extremes! From diff'rent natures marvelously mixt, Connection exquifite of diftant worlds: Diftinguifh'd link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity! A beam ethereal, fully'd and abforpt! Tho' fully'd and dishonour'd, still divine! Dim miniature of greatnefs abfolute ! An lieir of glory! a frail child of duft! Helplefs immortal! infect infinite! A worm! a god!-I tremble at myfelf, And in myfelf am loft! at home a ftranger, Thought wanders up and down, furpriz'd, aghaft, And wond'ring at her own: How reafon reels! O what a miracle to man is man,
Triumphantly diftrefs'd! what joy, what dread! Alternately tranfported and alarm'd;
What can preferve my life! or what destroy' An angel's arm can't fhatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there.
$73. Life and Eternity. YouNG.
HIS is the bud of being, the dim dawn,
The twilight of our day, the vestibule;
Life's theatre as vet is fhut, and death,
Strong death, alone can heave the maily 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,
The future embryo, fiumb'ring in his fire.
Embryos we must be till we burft the thell,
You ambient azure thell, and fpring to life,
The life of gods, O tranfport' and of man.
Yet man, fool man here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celeftial hopes without one figh.
Prifoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his withes; wing'd by Heav'n
To fly at infinite; and reach it there,
Where feraphs gather immortality,
On life's fair tree, faft by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrofial cluftering glow,
In His full beam, and ripen for the juft,
WAR, Famine, Peft, Volcano, Storm, and Fire, Inteftine broils, Oppreffion, with her heart Wrapt up in triple brats, befiege mankind, God's image ditinherited of day,
Here, plung'd in mines, forgets a fun was made:
There, beings, deathlefs as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life,
And plow the winter's wave, and reap defpair.
Some, for hard mafters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread thro' realms their valour fav'd:
If fo the tyrant, or his minion, doom,
Want, and incurable disease (fell pair ')
On hopeless multitudes remorfelefs feize
At once, and make a refuge of the grave.
How groaning hofpitals 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 pleafure! fince in pains
You rue more modith viiits, vifit here, [duce
And breathe from your debauch: give, and re-
Surfeit's dominion o'er you: but fo
great
Your impudence, you bluth at what is right.
Happy did forrow feize on fuch alone.
Not prudence can defend, or virtue fave;
Difeafe invades the chatteft temperance;
And punishment the guiltlefs; and alarm,
Thro' thickeft fhades, purfues the fond of peace.
Man's caution often into danger turns,
And, his guard falling, cruthes him to death.
Not happinefs itself makes good her name;
Our very withes give us not our with.
How diftant oft the things we doat on most
From that for which we dont, felicity!
The finootheft courfe of nature has its pains!
And trueft friends, thro' error, wound our reft.
Without misfortune, what calamities!
And what hoftilities without a foe!
Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.
But endlefs is the lift of human lis,
And fighs might fooner fail than caufe to figh.
$76. Death. YOUNG.. BEWARE, Lorenzo! a flow fudden death. How dreadful that deliberate fin prik Be wife to-day; 'tis madnet's to defer; Next day the fatel precedent will plead; Thus on, till wifdon is puth'd out of life. Procraftination is the thief of time; Year after year it feals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vaft concerns of an eternal fcenc. If not fo frequent, would not this be strange ? That 'tis fo frequeut, this is ftranger ftill." Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, "That all men are about to live." For ever on the brink of being born. All pay themselves the compliment to think They one day fhall not drivel; and their pride. On this revelion take up ready praife;
At least, their own; their future felves applauds; | And all mankind, in contradiction strong,
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodg'd in their own hands is Folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they confign;
The thing they can't but purpose they poftpone:
'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool;
And scarce in human wifdom to do more.
All promife is poor dilatory man;
And that thro' ev'ry stage: when young, indeed,
In full content we, fometimes, nobly reft,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only with,
As duteous fons, our fathers were more wife.
At thirty, man fufpects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pufhes his prudent purpose to refolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Refolves, and re-refolves; then dies the fame.
And why? Because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal but themselves;
Themselves, when fome alarming shock of fate
Strikes through their wounded hearts the fudden
dread;
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But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon clofe; where paft the fhaft, no trace is found,
As from the wing no fear the fky retains
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
Ev'n with the tender tear which nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
877. Inconfiftency of Man. Young.
AH! how unjust to nature and himself
Is thoughtless, thanklefs, inconfiftent man!
Like children babbling nonfenfe in their fports,
We cenfure nature for a fpan too short;
That fpan too fhort, we tax as tedious too;
Torture invention, all expedients tire,
To lafh the ling'ring moments into speed,
And whirl us (happy riddance !) from ourselves.
Art, brainless art! our furious charioteer
(For Nature's voice unftifled would recall)
Drives headlong tow'rds the precipice of death;
Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful
O what a riddle of abfurdity!
Leifure is pain; takes off our chariot-wheels;
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Bleft leifure is our curfe; like that of Cain,
It makes us wander; wander earth around
To fly that tyrant, Thought. As Atlas groan'd
The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.
We cry for mercy to the next amusement;
The next amufement mortgages our fields;
Slight inconvenience! prifons hardly frown,
From hateful Time if prifons fet us free.
Yet, when Death kindly tenders us relief,
We call him cruel; years to moments shrink,
Ages to years. The telefcope is turn'd
To man's falfe optics (from his folly falfe) :
Tine, in advance, behind him hides his wings,
And feems to creep, decrepid with his age;
Behold him when paft by; what then is feen
But his broad pinions, fwifter than the winds?
Rueful, aghast! cry out on his career.
We rave, we wrestle, with Great Nature's plan;
We thwart the Deity; and 'tis decreed,
Who thwart his will fhall contradict their own.
Hence our unnatural quarrels with ourselves;
Our thoughts at enmity; our bofom broils;
We push Time from us, and we with him back;
Lavish of luftrums, and yet fond of life; [fhun;
Life we think long, and fhort: Death feek, and
Body and foul, like peevish man and wife,
United jar, and yet are loth to part.
$78. Vanity. YOUNG.
H the dark days of vanity! while here,
How tastelefs! and how terrible when gone!
The fpirit walks of ev'ry day deceas'd; [ftill:
Gone! they ne'er go; when paft, they haunt us
And fimiles an angel, or a fury frowns.
And time poffeft both pain us, what can please!
Nor death, nor life delight us. If time paft
Time us'd. The man who confecrates his hours
That which the Deity to pleafe ordain'd,
By vig'rous effort and an honeft aim,
At once he draws the fting of life and death;
He walks with Nature; and her paths are peace.
$79. Paternal Love. YOUNG.
ATHERS alone a Father's heart can know; What fecret tides of ftill enjoyment flow When brothers love! but if their hate fucceeds, They wage the war; but 'tis the Father bleeds.
$80. Confcience. YOUNG.
TREACH ROUS Confcience! while the
feems to fleep
On rofe and myrtle, lull'd with fyren song ;
While the feems, nodding o'er her change, to drop
On headlong Appetite the flacken'd rein,
And give us up to licence, unrecall'd,
Unmark'd;-fee, from behind her fecret ftand,
The fly informer minutes ev'ry fault,
And her dread diary with horror fills,
Not the grofs act alone employs her pen;
She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band,
A watchful foe! the formidable fpy,
Lift'ning, o'erhears the whispers of our camp:
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And steals our embryos of iniquity.
As all-rapacious ufurers conceal
Their doomfday-book from all confuming heire,
Thus, with indulgence moft fevere, the treats
Us fpendthrifts of ineftimable Time;
Unnoted, notes each moment mifapply'd;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brafs,
Writes our whole history; which Death fhall
In ev'ry pale delinquent's private ear; [read
And judgment publish; publish to more worlds
Than this; and endless age in groans refound.
§ 82. Self-Love. YOUNG. WHO venerate themselves, the world despise. For what, gay friend! is this efcutchion'd world,
Which hangs out death in one eternal night?
A night that glooms us in the noon-tide ray,
And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the
Life's little ftage is a small eminence, [fhroud.
Inch-high the grave above; that home of man,
Where dwells the multitude: We gaze around;
We read their monuments; we figh; and while
We figh, we fink, and are what we deplor'd;
Lamenting, or lamented, all our lot!
Is death at diftance: no, he has been on thee; And giv'n fure earneft of his final blow. [now? Those hours that lately fmil'd, where are they Pallid to thought, and ghaftly! drown'd, all drown'd
In that great deep, which nothing difembogues! And, dying, they bequeath'd thee fmall renown. The reft are on the wing: How fleet their flight! Already has the fatal train took fire;
A moment, and the world's blown up to thee; The fun is darkness, and the stars are duft.
§ 83. Communion with Paft Hours.
wife to talk with our And afk them, what report they bore to heav'n; [news. And how they might have borne more welcome Their anfwers form what men Experience call; If Wisdom's friend, her beft; if not, worst foe. O reconcile them; Kind Experience cries, "There's nothing here but what as nothing weighs ;
"The more our joy, the more we know it vain : "And by fuccefs are tutor'd to defpair." Nor only is it thus, but must be fo.
Who knows not this tho' grey, is ftill a child. Loose then from earth the grafp of fond defire, Weigh anchor, and fome happier clime explore.
$84. Confcience. YOUNG. CONSCIENCE, what art thou? Thou tremen
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From point to point, tho' feeming to stand still.
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth,
Too fubtile is the movement to be feen;
Yet foon man's hour is up, and we are gone.
Warnings point out our danger; Gnomons, time:
As these are useless when the fun is fet,
Sothofe, but when more glorious Reason fhines.
Reafon fhould judge in all; in reafon's eye,
That fedentary fhadow travels hard.
But fuch our gravitation to the wrong,
prone our hearts to whisper that we with, 'Tis latter with the wife than he's aware: A Wilmington goes flower than the fun : And all mankind miftake their time of day; Ev'n age itself. Fresh hopes are hourly fown In furrow'd brows. To gentle life's defcent We fhut our eyes, and think it is a plain. We take fair days in winter for the spring, And turn our bleffings into bane. Since oft Man must compute that age he cannot feel, He fcarce believes he's older for his years. Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in ftore One difappointment fure, to crown the reft,→ The disappointment of a promis'd hour.
Twill buy thee benefit; perhaps, renown.
Thought, too, deliver'd, is the more poffeft;
Teaching we learn, and giving, we retain
The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot.
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire;
Speech burnishes our mental magazine;
Brightens for ornament, and whets for use.
What numbers, fheath'd in erudition, lie
Plung'd to the hilts in venerable tombs,
And rufted in, who might have borne an edge,
And play'd a fprightly beam, if born to fpeech;
If born bleft heirs of half their mother's tongue!
'Tis thought's exchange, which, like th'alter-
nate pufh
Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned fcum,
And defecates the ftudent's ftanding pool.
88. Wisdom, Friendship, Joy, and Happiness.
None clings more obftinate, than fancy fond
That facred friendship is their eafy prey;
Caught by the wafture of a golden lure,
Or fafcination of a high-born fmile.
Their fmiles, the Great and the Coquette throw
For others hearts, tenacious of their own;
And we no lefs of ours, when fuch the bait.
Ye fortune's cofferers! Ye pow'rs of wealth!
Can gold gain friendfhip? Impudence of hope!
As well mere man an angel might beget.
Love, and Love only, is the loan for love.
Lorenzo, pride reprefs; nor hope to find
A friend, but what has found a friend in thee.
All like the purchafe; few the price will pay;
And this makes friends fuch miracles below.
YOUNG.DELIBERATE on all things with thy friend 5
But fince friends grow not thick on ev'ry
Nor ev'ry friend unrotten at the bough,
First, on thy friend, delib'rate with thyself;
Paufe, ponder, fift; not cager in the choice,
Nor jealous of the chofen; fixing, fix;
Judge before friendship, then confide till death
Well for thy friend; but nobler far for thee;
How gallant danger for carth's highest prize!
A friend is worth all hazards we can run.
"Poor is the friendlefs mafter of a world :
"A world in purchafe for a friend is gain."
O! for the bright complexion, cordial warmth,
And elevating fpirit, of a friend,
tho' richer than Peruvian mines,
And fweeter than the sweet ambrofial hive,
What is the, but the means of happiness?
That unobtain'd, than folly more a fool;
A melancholy fool without her bells.
Friendship, the means of wildom, richly gives
The precious end which makes our wifdom wife.
Nature, in zeal for human amity,
Denics, or damps, an undivided joy.
Joy is an import; joy is an exchange;
Joy flies monopolifts: it calls for two;
Rich fruit! Heav'n planted' never pluckt by One.
Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give
To focial man true relish of himself.
Full on ourfulves, defcending in a line,
Pleasure's bright beam is feble in delight;
Delight intenfe, is taken by rebound;
Reverberated pleafures fire the breaft.
Celeftial Happincis, whene'er the stoops
To vilit earth, one fhrine the goddes finds,
And one alone, to make her feet amends
For abient heav'n-the bofom of a friend;
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally foft,
Each other's pillow to repofe divine,
Beware the counterfeit: In paffion's flame
Hearts melt, but melt like ice, foon harder froze.
True love ftrikes root in Reafon, paffion's foc:
Virtue alone cntenders us for life:
I wrong her much-entenders us for ever.
Of Friendship's faircft fruits, the fruit most fair
Is Virtue kindling at a rival fire,
And, emulously, repid in her race.
O the foft eninity! endearing ftrife'
This carries friendship to her noontide point,
And gives the rivet of eternity.
From Friendship, which outlives my former
Glorious furvivor of old Time and death! [feed,
From Friendlhip, thus, that flow'r of heav'nly
The wife extract earth's moft Hyblean blifs,
Superior wifdom, crown'd with fimiling joy.
For twenty fummers ripening by my side;
All feculence of falfhood long thrown down;
All focial virtues rifing in his foul,
As crystal clear, and fmiling as they rife!
Here nectar flows; it fparkles in our fight;
Rich to the tafie, and genuine from the heart.
High-flavour'd blifs for gods! on earth how rare!
$90. Happiness. YOUNG."
THRICE happy they who fleep in humble life,
Beneath the form ambition flows. 'Tis meet The Great fhould have the fame of happiness, The confolation of a little envy;
'Tis all their pay for thofe fuperior care,
Thote pangs of heart, their vassals ne'er can feel.
§ 91. Diffolution of a Virtuous Man. YOUNG.
THE chamber where the good man meets his
요
fate,
[themes,Is privileg'd beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heav'n.
Fly, ye profane! If not, draw near with awe,
Receive the bleding, and adore the chance
That threw in this Bethesda your discafe;
If unreftor'd by this, defpair your cure.
For here, refifilcfs demonftration dwells;
A death-bed's a detecter of the heart.
Here tir'd diffimulation drops her mafque,
Thro' life's grimace, that miftrefs of the fcene!
Here real and apparent are the fame.
But for whom bloffoms this Elyfian flower?
Abroad they find, who cherish it at home.
Lorenzo, pardon what my love extorts,
An honeft love, and not afraid to frown.
Tho' choice of follies faften on the Great,
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