;

§ 185. Life compared to a Stream. Is it, that life has sown her joys so thick, We can't thrust in a single care between? Is it, that life has such a swarm of cares, The thought of death can't enter for the throng? Is it that time steals on with downy feet, Nor wakes indulgence from her golden dream? To-day is so like yesterday, it cheats; We take the lying sister for the same. Life glides away, Lorenzo, like a brook; For ever changing, unperceiv'd the change. In the same brook none ever bath'd him twice: To the same life none ever twice awoke. We call the brook the same; the same we think Our life, though still more rapid in its flow Nor mark the much irrevocably laps'd, And mingled with the sea. Or shall we say (Retaining still the brook to bear us on) That life is like a vessel on the stream? In life embark'd, we smoothly down the tide Of time descend, but not on time intent, Amus'd, unconscious of the gliding wave; Till on a sudden we perceive a shock; We start, awake, look out; our bark is burst. Is this the cause death flies all human thought? Or is it judgement by the will struck blind, That domineering mistress of the soul! Or is it fear turns startled reason back, From looking down a precipice so steep? "Tis dreadful; and the dread is wisely plac'd, By nature conscious of the make of man. A dreadful friend it is, a terror kind, A flaming sword to guard the tree of life. By that unaw'd, man on each pique of pride, Or gloom of humor, would give rage the rein, Bound o'er the barrier, rush into the dark, And mar the schemes of Providence below. § 186. Suicide.

WHAT groan was that? There took his gloomy flight,

On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul,
Blasted from hell with horrid lust of death.
Thy friend, the brave, the gallant Altamont
So call'd, so thought and then he fled the field.
Less base the fear of death, than fear of life.
O Britain! infamous for suicide;
An island in thy manners! far disjoin'd

From the whole world of rationals beside,
In ambient waves plunge thy polluted head,
Wash the dire stain, nor shock the continent.

But thou be shock'd, while I detect the cause

Of self-assault, expose the monster's birth,

And bid abhorrence hiss it round the world.
Blame not thy clime, nor chide the distant sun;
Immoral climes kind nature never made.
The cause I sing in Eden might prevail,
And
proves it is thy folly, not thy fate.

The soul of man (let man in homage bow Who names his soul) a native of the skies! High-born, and free, her freedom should maintain,

Unsold, unmortgag'd for earth's little bribes.
Th' illustrious stranger, in this foreign land
Like strangers, jealous of her dignity,
Studious of home, and ardent to return,
Of earth suspicious, earth's enchanted cup
With cool reserve light-touching, should indulge
On immortality her godlike taste;
There take large draughts; make her chief ban-
quet there.

But some reject this sustenance divine;
To beggarly vile appetites descend;
Ask alms of earth for gifts that came from heaven;
Sink into slaves; and sell, for present hire,
Their rich reversion, and (what shares its fate)
Their native freedom, to the prince who sways
This nether world. And when his payments fail,
When his full basket gorges them no more;
Or their pall'd palates loath the basket full,
Are, instantly, with wild demoniac rage,
For breaking all the chains of Providence,
And bursting their confinement; though fast
barr'd

By laws divine and human; guarded strong
With horrors doubled to defend the pass
The blackest nature or dire guilt can raise ;
And moated round with fathomless destruction,
Sure to receive, and whelm them in their fall.

Such, Britons! is the cause, to you unknown, Or worse, o'erlook'd; o'erlook'd by magistrates, Thus criminals themselves. I grant the deed Is madness; but the madness of the heart. And what is that? our utmost bound of guilt. A sensual, unreflecting life is big

With monstrous births, and suicide, to crown
The black infernal brood. The bold to break
Heaven's law supreme, and desperately rush
Through sacred nature's murder, on their own,
Because they never think of death, they die.
When by the bed of languishment we sit,
Or, o'er our dying friends, in anguish hang,
Wipe the cold dew, or stay the sinking head,
Number their moments, and in ev'ry clock
Start at the voice of an eternity;
See the dim lamp of life just feebly lift
An agonizing beam, at us to gaze.
Then sink again, and quiver into death,
(That most pathetic herald of our own!)
How read we such sad scenes? as sent to man
In perfect vengeance? no; in pity sent,
To melt him down, like wax, and then impress,

What smitten most proclaims the pride of power,
And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme,
To bid the wretch survive the fortunate;
The feeble wrap th' athletic in his shroud;
And weeping fathers build their children's tomb;
Me thine, Narcissa!--what though short thy
date?

Virtue, not rolling suns, the mind matures.
That life is long, which answers life's great end.
The time that bears no fruit, deserves no name:
The man of wisdom is the man of years.
In hoary youth Methusalems may die,
O how misdated on their flattering tombs!
All more than common menaces an end;
A blaze betokens brevity of life.
To plant the soul on her eternal guard,
In awful expectation of our end, [but so
Thus runs Death's dread commission; "Strike,
"As most alarms the living by the dead."
Hence stratagem delights him, and surprise,
And cruel sport with man's securities.
Not simple conquest, triumph is his aim, [most.
And where least fear'd, there conquest triumphs
What are his arts to lay our fears asleep!
Tiberian arts his purposes wrap up
In deep dissimulation's darkest night.
Like princes unconfest in foreign courts,
Who travel under cover, Death assumes
The name and look of life, and dwells among us.
Behind the rosy bloom he loves to lurk,
Or ambush in a simile; or wanton dive
In dimples deep; love's eddies, which draw in
Unwary hearts, and sink them in despair.
Most happy they whom least his arts deceive.
One eye on death, and one full fix'd on heaven,
Becomes a mortal and immortal man.
Where is not death? sure as night follows day,
Death treads in pleasure's footsteps round the
world,
[shuns,
When pleasure treads the paths which reason
When against reason riot shuts the door,
And gaiety supplies the place of sense.
Then foremost at the banquet and the ball,
Death leads the dance, or damps the deadly die;
Nor ever fails the midnight bowl to crown.
Gaily carousing to his gay compeers,
Inly he laughs, to see them laugh at him,
As absent far: and when the revel burns,
When fear is banish'd, and triumphant thought
Calling for all the joys beneath the moon,
Against him turns the key: and bids him sup
With their progenitors-He drops his mask;
Frowns out at full; they start, despair, expire!
Scarce with more sudden terror and surprise,
From his black mask of nitre, touch'd by fire
He bursts, expands, roars, blazes, and devours.
And is not this triumphant treachery,
And more than simple conquest in the fiend?
And now, gay trifler, dost thou wrap thy soul
In soft security, because unknown
Which moment is commission'd to destroy?
In death's uncertainty thy danger lies.

Is death uncertain? therefore thou be fix'd;
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, bestrong;
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.

Does wealth with youth and gaiety conspire
To weave a triple wreath of happiness?
That shining mark invites the tyrant's spear,
As if to damp our elevated aims,

And strongly preach humility to man.
O how portentous is prosperity!

How, comet-like, it threatens while it shines!
Few years but yield us proof of Death's ambition
To cull his victims from the fairest fold,
And sheath his shafts in all the pride of life.
When flooded with abundance, purpled o'er
With recent honours, bloom'd with every bliss;
Set up in ostentation, made to gaze,
The gaudy centre of the public eye;
When fortune, thus, has toss'd her child in air,
Suatch'd from the covert of an humble state,
How often have I seen him dropp'd at once,
Our morning's envy, and our ev'ning's sigh!
As if her bounties were the signal giv'n,
The flow'ry wreath, to mark the sacrifice,
And call Death's arrows on the destin'd prey.

§ 191. NIGHT VI. The Death of Narcissa.
SHE (for I know not yet her name in heaven)
Not early, like Narcissa, left the scene;
Nor sudden, like Philander. What avail?
This seeming mitigation but inflames;
This fancy'd medicine heightens the disease.
The longer known, the closer still she grew;
And gradual parting is a gradual death.

O the long dark approach through years of pain, Death's gallery, with sable terror hung; Sick hope's pale lamp its only glimmering ray! There fate my melancholy walk ordain'd. How oft I gaz'd, prophetically sad! How oft I saw her dead while yet in smiles! In smiles she sunk her grief to lessen mine : She spoke me comfort, and increas'd my pain. Like powerful armies trenching at a town, By slow and silent, but resistless sap, In his pale progress gently gaining ground, Death urg'd his deadly siege: in spite of art, Of all the balmy blessings nature lends To succour frail humanity. Ye stars! And thou, O moon! bear witness; many a night He tore the pillow from beneath my head, Tied down my sore attention to the shock, By ceaseless depredations on a life, Dearer than that he left me, Dreadful post Of observation! darker every hour! Less dread the day that drove me to the brink, And pointed at eternity below. When my soul shudder'd at futurity, When, on a moment's point, th' important die Of life and death, spun doubtful, ere it fell, And turn'd up life; iny title to more woe.

[rise;

But why more woe? more comfort let it be.
Nothing is dead, but that which wish'd to die;
Nothing is dead, but wretchedness and pain:
Nothing is dead, but what encumber'd, gall'd,
Block'd up the pass, and barr'd from real life.
Where dwells that wish most ardent of the wise?
Too dark the sun to see it; highest stars
Too low to reach it; death, great death alone,
O'er stars and sun triumphant, lands us there.
Nordreadful our transition; though the mind,
An artist at creating self-alarms,
Rich in expedients for inquietude,
Is prone to paint it dreadful. Who can take
Death's portrait true? the tyrant never sat.
Our sketch, all random strokes, conjecture all;
Close shuts the grave, nor tells one single tale.
Death, and his image rising in the brain,
Bear faint resemblance; never are alike;
Fear shakes the pencil, Fancy loves excess,
Dark Ignorance is lavish of her shades;
And these the formidable picture draw.
But grant the worst; 'tis past; new prospects
And drop a veil eternal o'er her tomb.
Far other views our contemplation claim,
Views that o'erpay the rigors of our life;
Views that suspend our agonies in death.
Wrapt in the thought of immortality,
Long life might lapse, age unperceiv'd come on;
And find the soul unsated with her theme:
Its nature, proof, importance, fire my song.
§ 192. Reflections on Man and Immortality.
THY nature, Immortality, who knows?
And yet who knows it not? It is but life
In stronger thread of brighter color spun,
And spun for ever; black and brittle' here!
How short our correspondence with the sun!
And while it lasts, inglorious! our best deeds,
How wanting in their weight! our highest joys,
Small cordials to support us in our pain,
And give us strength to suffer. But how great
To mingle interests, converse, amities,
With all the sons of Reason, scatter'd wide
Through habitable space, wherever born,
Howe'er endow'd! to live free citizens
Of universal Nature! to lay hold
By more than feeble faith on the Supreme!
To call heaven's rich unfathomable mines
Our own! to rise in science as in bliss,
Initiate in the secrets of the skies!
To read creation; read its mighty plan
In the bare bosom of the Deity!
The plan and execution to collate!

To see, before each glance of piercing thought,
All cloud, all shadow blown remote; and leave
No mystery-but that of love divine,
Which lifts us on the seraph's flaming wing,
From carth's Aceldama, this field of blood,
Of inward anguish, and of outward ill,
From darkness, and from dust, to such a scene!
Love's element! true joy's illustrious home!
From earth's sad contrast (now deplor'd) more
[great.
These are the thoughts that aggrandise the

fair.

How great (while yet we tread the kindred clod,
And every moment fear to sink beneath
The clod we tread; soon trodden by our sons)-
How great, in the wild whirl of time's pursuits,
To stop, and pause, involv'd in high presage;
Through the long vista of a thousand years,
To stand contemplating our distant selves,
As in a magnifying mirror seen,
Enlarg'd, ennobled, elevate, divine!
To prophesy our own futurities!
Togazein thought onwhat all thought transcends!
To talk, with fellow-candidates, of joys,
As far beyond conception as desert,
Ourselves th' astonish'd talkers and the tale!
When mount we? when these shackles cast?
when quit

This cell of the creation? this small nest,
Stuck in a corner of the universe,

Wrapt up in fleecy cloud, and fine-spun-air?
Fine-spun to sense, but gross and feculent
To souls celestial; souls ordain'd to breathe
Ambrosial gales, and drink a purer sky;
Greatly triumphant on time's farther shore.

In an eternity what scenes shall strike!
What webs of wonder shall unravel there!
What full day pour on all the paths of heaven,
And light th Almighty's footsteps in the deep!
How shall the blessed day of our discharge
Unwind, at once, the labyrinths of fate,
And straighten its inextricable maze!

If inextinguishable thirst in man To know; how rich, how full our banquet here! Here, not the moral world alone unfolds; The world material lately seen in shades, And in those shades, by fragments only seen, And seen those fragments by the laboring eye, Unbroken, now, illustrious, and entire, Its ample sphere, its universal frame, In full dimensions, swells to the survey; And enters, at one glance, the ravish'd sight. How shall the stranger man's illumin'd eye, In the vast ocean of unbounded space, Behold an infinite of floating worlds Divide the crystal waves of ether pure, In endless voyage, without port! the least Of these disseminated orbs how great! Yet what are these to the stupendous whole? As particles, as atoms ill-perceiv'd. [heaven.

If admiration is a source of joy,
What transport hence! Yet this the least in
What this to that illustrious robe He wears,
Who toss'd this mass of wonders from his hand,
A specimen, an earnest of his power!
'Tis, to that glory, whence all glory flows,
As the mead's meanest flow'ret to the sun,
Which gave it birth. But what, this Sun of
heaven!

This bliss supreme of the supremely blest!
Death, only death, the question can resolve.
By death cheap-bought th' ideas of our joy!
The bare ideas! solid happiness

So distant from its shadow chas'd below! [fire,

And chase we still the phantom through the O'er bog, and brake, and precipice, 'till death?