For who shall answer for another hour?

Tis highly prudent to make one sure friend,
And that thou canst not do, this side the skies.

1390

Ye sons of Earth! (nor willing to be more!) 1385 Since verse you think from priestcraft somewhat free, Thus, in an age so gay, the Muse plain truths (Truths which, at church, you might have heard in prose) Has ventured into light, well pleased the verse Should be forgot, if you the truths retain, And crown her with your welfare, not your praise. But praise she need not fear: I see my fate, And headlong leap, like Curtius, down the gulf. Since many an ample volume, mighty tome, Must die, and die unvept; O thou minute Devoted page! go forth among thy foes; Go, nobly proud of martyrdom for truth, And die a double death: mankind, incensed, Denies thee long to live; nor shalt thou rest When thou art dead; in Stygian shades arraign'd By Lucifer, as traitor to his throne, And bold blasphemer of his friend,-the World! The world, whose legions cost him slender pay, And volunteers around his banner swarm; Prudent, as Prussia in her zeal for Gaul.

'Are all, then, fools?' Lorenzo cries.-Yes, all But such as hold this doctrine (new to thee,) 'The mother of true wisdom is the will:'

1395

1401

1405

The noblest intellect, a fool without it.
World-wisdom much has done, and more may do, 1410
In arts and sciences, in wars and peace;

But art and science, like thy wealth, will leave thee,
And make thee twice a beggar at thy death.
This is the most indulgence can afford,-
'Thy wisdom all can do but-make thee wise.'
Nor think this censure is severe on thee:
Satan, thy master, I dare call a dunce.

1415

THE CONSOLATION.

NIGHT IX.

CONTAINING, AMONG OTHER THINGS,

IA MORAL SURVEY OF THE NOCTURNAL HEAVENS

II, A NIGHT ADDRESS TO THE DEITY.

HUMBLY INSCRIBED

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

- Fatis contraria fata rependens.

Virg.

As when a traveller, a long day pass’d
In painful search of what he cannot find,
At night's approach, content with the next cot,
There ruminates a while his labour lost;
Then, cheers his heart with what his fate affords, 6
And chants his sonnet to deceive the time,
Till the due season calls him to repose ;
Thus I, long travel'd in the ways of men,
And dancing, with the rest, the giddy maze,
Where Disappointment smiles at Hope's career, 10
Warn'd by the languor of life's evening ray,
At length have housed me in an humble shed,
Where, future wandering banish'd from my thought,
And waiting, patient, the sweet hour of rest,
I chase the moments with a serious song.

15 Song sooths our pains, and age has pains to sooth. Whenage, care, crime, and friends embraced at heart,

Torn from my bleeding breast, and death's dark shade,
Which hovers o'er me, quench the etherial fire,
Canst thou, O Night! indulge one labour more ? 20
One labour more indulge ! then sleep, my strain'
Till, haply, waked by Raphael's golden lyre,
Where night, death, age, care, crime, and sorrow cease,
To bear a part in everlasting lays;
Though far, far higher set; in aim, I trust, 25
Symphonious to this humble prelude here.

Has not the Muse asserted pleasures pure,
Like those above, exploding other joys ?
Weigh what was urged, Lorenzo; fairly weigh,
And tell me, hast thou cause to triumph still? 30
I think thou wilt forbear a boast so bold :
But if, beneath the favour of mistake,
Thy smile's sincere; not more sincere can be
Lorenzo's smile, than my compassion for him.
The sick in body call for aid; the sick

35 In mind are covetous of more disease ; And, when at worst, they dream themselves quite well. To know ourselves diseased is half our cure. When Nature's blush by custom is wiped off, And Conscience, deaden'd by repeated strokes, 40 Has into manners naturalized our crimes, The curse of curses is our curse to love ; To triumph in the blackness of our guilt (As Indians glory in the deepest jet,) And throw aside our senses with our peace.

45 But, grant no guilt, no shame, no least alloy ; Grant joy and glory quite unsullied shone ; Yet, still, it ili deserves Lorenzo's heart. No joy, no glory glitters in thy sight, But, through the thin partition of an hour, 50 I see its sables wove by Destiny ; And that in sorrow buried, this in shame; While howling furies ring the doleful knell, And Conscience, now so soft thou scarce canst hear Her whisper, echoes her eternal peal.

55

Where the prime actors of the last year's scene Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume? How many sleep, who kept the world awake With lustre and with noise! Has Death proclaim'd A truce, and hung his sated lance on high? "Tis brandish'd still, nor shall the present year Be more tenacious of her human leaf,

Or spread, of feeble life, a thinner fall.

But needless monuments to wake the thought;
Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality,
Though in a style more florid, full as plain
As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs.
What are our noblest ornaments, but Deaths
Turn'd flatterers of Life, in paint or marble,
The well stain'd canvass, or the featured stone?
Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene:
Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.

'Profess'd diversions! cannot these escape ?'-
Far from it these present us with a shroud,
And talk of death, like garlands o'er a grave.
As some bold plunderers for buried wealth,
We ransack tombs for pastime; from the dust
Call up the sleeping hero; bid him tread
The scene for our amusement. How like gods
We sit; and, wrapp'd 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 egacies in blossom Our lean soil,
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, shall we crawl on, nor know
Our present frailties, or approaching fate?

Lorenzo! such the glories of the world!
What is the world itself? thy world?-a grave.
Where is the dust that has not been alive?
The spade, the plough disturb our ancestors.

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

Froin human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes, 96
And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons.
O'er devastation we blind revels keep
Whole buried towns support the dancer's neer.
The moist of human frame the Sun exhales ;
Winds scatter, through the inighty void, the dry
Earth repossesses part of what she gave,

101
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. 105
Nor man alone ; his breathing bust expires ;
His toml, is mortal; einpires die : where, now,
The Roman ? Greek ? they stalk, an empty name !
Yet few regard them in this useful light,
Though half our leurning is their epitaph. 110
When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought,
That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,
O Breath! I stretch my view, what visions rise !
What triumphs ! toils impurial ! arts divine !
In wither d laurels glide before my sight!

115 What lengths of far famed ages, billowed high With human agitacion, roll along In unsubstantial images of air ! The melancholy ghosts of dead Renown, Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause, 120 With penitential aspect, as they pass, All point at earth, and hiss at human pride ; The wisdom of the wise, and prancings of the great.

But, O Lorenzo ! far the rest above, Of ghastly nature, and enormous size,

125 One form assaults my sight, and chills my blood, And shakes my frame. Of one departed World I see the mighty shadow : oozy wreath And dismal sea-weed crown her : o'er her urn Reclined, she weeps her desolated realms,

130 And bloated sons : and, weeping, prophesies