What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow
In his full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more!
Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death ex-
And is it in the flight of threescore years
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptured or alarm'd,
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather or to drown a fly.
Where falls this censure? It o'erwhelms myself:
How was my heart incrusted with the world!
Oh, how self-fetter'd was my grovelling soul!
How, like a worm, was I wrapp'd round and round
In silken thought, which reptile Fancy spun,
Till darken'd Reason lay quite clouded o'er
With soft conceit of endless comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!
Night-visions may befriend (as sung above):
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dream'd
Of things impossible! (Could sleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noontide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective!
Till at death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Where now my phrensy's pompous furniture?
The cobwebb'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 bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
Yet why complain? or why complain for one?
Hangs out the sun his lustre but for me,
The single man? Are angels all besides?
I mourn for millions: 'tis the common lot;
In this shape or in that has Fate entail'd
The mother's throes on all of woman born,
Not more the children than sure heirs of pain.
War, Famine, Pest, Volcano, Storm, and Fire,
Intestine broils, Oppression, with her heart
Wrapp'd up in triple brass, besiege mankind.
God's image, disinherited of day,
Here, plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made
There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life,
And plough the winter's wave, and reap despair.
Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,
In battle lopp'd away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread through realms their valour saved,
If so the tyrant or his minion doom.
Want and incurable Disease (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize
At once, and make a refuge of the grave.
How groaning hospitals eject their dead!
What numbers groan for sad admission there!
What numbers, once in Fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold hand of Charity!
To shock us more, solicit it in vain!
Ye silken sons of pleasure; since in pains
You rue more modish visits, visit here,
And breathe from your debauch: give, and reduce
Surfeit's dominion over you; but so great
Your impudence, you blush at what is right.
Happy did sorrow seize on such alone.
Not Prudence can defend, or Virtue save;
Disease invades the chastest temperance,
And punishment the guiltless; and alarm,
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 distant oft the thing we dote on most
From that for which we dote, felicity!
The smoothest course of nature has its pains;
And truest friends through error, wound our rest.
Without misfortune, what calamities!
And what hostilities, without a foe!
Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.
But endless is the list of human ills,
And sighs might sooner fail than cause to sigh.
COMPLAINT FOR NARCISSA.
Он, Philander!
What was thy fate? A double fate to me;
Portent and pain, a menace and a blow,
Like the black raven hovering o'er my peace,
Not less a bird of omen than of prey.
It call'd Narcissa long before her hour;
It call'd her tender soul, by break of bliss,
From the first blossom, from the buds of joy ;
Those few our noxious fate unblasted leaves
In this inclement clime of human life.
Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if aught happy here) as good!
For fortune fond had built her nest on high.
Like birds quite exquisite of note and plume,
Transfix'd by fate (who loves a lofty mark),
How from the summit of the grove she fell,
And left it unharmonious. All its charms
Extinguish'd in the wonders of her song!
Her song still vibrates in my ravish'd ear,
Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain
(Oh to forget her!) thrilling through my heart!
Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy, this group
Of bright ideas, flowers of Paradise,
As yet unforfeit! in one blaze we bind,
Kneel, and present it to the skies, as all
We guess of heaven: and these were all her own;
And she was mine; and I was-was!-most bless'd-
Gay title of the deepest misery!
As bodies grow more ponderous robb'd of life,
Good lost weighs more in grief than gain'd in joy,
Like blossom'd trees o'erturn'd by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there,
Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.
And will not the severe excuse a sigh?
Scorn the proud man that is ashamed to weep;
Our tears indulged indeed deserve our shame.
Ye that e'er lost an angel, pity me!
Soon as the lustre languish'd in her eye,
Dawning a dimmer day on human sight,
And on her cheek, the residence of Spring,
Pale omen sat, and scatter'd fears around
On all that saw (and who would cease to gaze
That once had seen?), with haste, parental haste,
I flew, I snatch'd her from the rigid North,
Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew,
And bore her nearer to the sun the sun
(As if the sun could envy) check'd his beam,
Denied his wonted succour; nor with more
Regret beheld her drooping than the bells
Of lilies; fairest lilies, not so fair!
So man is made; naught ministers delight
But what his glowing passions can engage;
And glowing passions, bent on aught below,
Must, soon or late, with anguish turn the scale;
And anguish, after rapture, how severe !
Rapture? Bold man! who tempt'st the wrath divine,
By plucking fruit denied to mortal taste,
While here, presuming on the rights of Heaven.
For transport dost thou call on every hour,
Lorenzo? At thy friend's expense, be wise;
Lean not on Earth; 'twill pierce thee to the heart;
A broken reed at best, but oft a spear;
On its sharp point Peace bleeds, and Hope expires. Turn, hopeless thought! turn from her: thought repell'd
Resenting rallies, and wakes every wo.
Snatch'd ere thy prime! and in thy bridal hour!
And when kind Fortuné, with thy lover, smiled!
And when high flavour'd thy fresh-opening joys!
And when blind man pronounced thy bliss complete!
And on a foreign shore, where strangers wept!
Strangers to thee, and, more surprising still,
Strangers to kindness, wept their eyes let fall
Inhuman tears! strange tears! that trickled down
From marble hearts! obdurate tenderness!
A tenderness that call'd them more severe;
In spite of Nature's soft persuasion, steel'd!
While nature melted, superstition raved;
That mourn'd the dead, and this denied a grave.
Their sighs incensed; sighs foreign to the will!
Their will the tiger suck'd, outraged the storm.
For, oh! the cursed ungodliness of Zeal!
While sinful flesh relented, spirit nursed
In blind Infallibility's embrace,
The sainted spirit petrified the breast:
Denied the charity of dust to spread
O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy.
What could I do? What succour? What resource?
With pious sacrilege, a grave I stole ;
With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd;
Short in my duty! coward in my grief!
More like her murderer than friend I crept,
With soft-suspended step, and muffled deep
In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh.
I whisper'd what should echo through their realms;
Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the
skies.
Presumptuous fear! How durst I dread her foes,
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