Where the least jealousy turns love to gall?
All shines to them, that for a season shines.
Each act, each thought, he questions, "What its
66 weight,
"Its colour what, a thousand ages hence?"
And what it there appears, he deems it now.
Hence, pure are the recesses of his soul.
The godlike man has nothing to conceal.
His virtue, constitutionally deep,
Has habit's firmness, and affection's flame:
Angels, allied, descend to feed the fire;
And death, which others slays, makes him a god.
And now, LORENZO, bigot of this world!
Wont to disdain poor bigots caught by Heaven!
Stand by thy scorn, and be reduced to nought:
For what art thou?-Thou boaster! while thy glare,
Thy gaudy grandeur, and mere worldly worth,
Like a broad mist, at distance, strikes us most;
And, like a mist, is nothing when at hand;
His merit, like a mountain, on approach,
Swells more, and rises nearer to the skies,
By promise, now, and, by possession, soon
(Too soon, too much, it cannot be) his own.
From this thy just annihilation rise,
LORENZO! rise to something, by reply.
The world, thy client, listens, and expects;
And longs to crown thee with immortal praise.
Canst thou be silent? No; for wit is thine;
And wit talks most, when least she has to say,
And reason interrupts not her career.
She'll say-That mists above the mountains rise;
And, with a thousand pleasantries, amuse:
She'll sparkle, puzzle, flutter, raise a dust,
And fly conviction, in the dust she raised.
Wit, how delicious to man's dainty taste!
'Tis precious, as the vehicle of sense;
But, as its substitute, a dire disease.
Pernicious talent! flatter'd by the world,
By the blind world, which thinks the talent rare.
Wisdom is rare, LORENZO! wit abounds:
Passion can give it; sometimes wine inspires
The lucky flash; and madness rarely fails.
Whatever cause the spirit strongly stirs,
Confers the bays, and rivals thy renown.
For thy renown, 'twere well was this the worst ;
Chance often hits it; and, to pique thee more,
See dulness, blundering on vivacities,
Shakes her sage head at the calamity,
Which has exposed, and let her down to thee.
But wisdom, awful wisdom! which inspects,
Discerns, compares, weighs, separates, infers,
Seizes the right, and holds it to the last;
How rare! In senates, synods, sought in vain;
Or, if there found, 'tis sacred to the few;
While a lewd prostitute to multitudes,
Frequent, as fatal, wit. In civil life,
Wit makes an enterpriser; sense, a man.
Wit hates authority; commotion loves,
And thinks herself the lightning of the storm.
In states, 'tis dangerous; in religion, death.
Shall wit turn Christian, when the dull believe?
Sense is our helmet, wit is but the plume;
The plume exposes, 'tis our helmet saves.
Sense is the diamond, weighty, solid, sound:
When cut by wit, it casts a brighter beam;
Yet, wit apart, it is a diamond still.
Wit, widow'd of good sense, is worse than nought:
It hoists more sail to run against a rock.
Thus, a half-CHESTERFIELD is quite a fool;
Whom dull fools scorn, and bless their want of wit.
How ruinous the rock I warn thee shun,
Where Sirens sit, to sing thee to thy fate!
A joy, in which our reason bears no part,
Is but a sorrow, tickling, ere it stings..
Let not the cooings of the world allure thee;
Which of her lovers, ever found her true?
Happy! of this bad world who little know!-
And yet, we much must know her, to be safe.
To know the world, not love her, is thy point :
She gives but little, nor that little, long.
There is, I grant, a triumph of the pulse;
A dance of spirits, a mere froth of joy,
Our thoughtless agitation's idle child,
That mantles high, that sparkles, and expires,
Leaving the soul more vapid than before;
An animal ovation! such as holds
No commerce with our reason, but subsists
On juices, through the well-toned tubes well strain'd;
A nice machine! scarce ever tuned aright;
And when it jars-thy Sirens sing no more,
Thy dance is done; the demi-god is thrown (Short apotheosis!) beneath the man,
In coward gloom immersed, or fell despair.
Art thou yet dull enough despair to dread, And startle at destruction? If thou art, Accept a buckler, take it to the field; (A field of battle is this mortal life !) When danger threatens, lay it on thy heart; A single sentence, proof against the world: "Soul, body, fortune! every good pertains "To one of these: but prize not all alike: "The goods of fortune to thy body's health, "Body to soul, and soul submit to GOD." Wouldst thou build lasting happiness? do this: Th' inverted pyramid can never stand.
Is this truth doubtful? It outshines the sun; Nay, the sun shines not, but to shew us this, The single lesson of mankind on earth.
And yet-Yet, what? No news! mankind is mad!
Such mighty numbers list against the right,
(And what can't numbers, when bewitch'd, achieve!)
They talk themselves to something like belief,
That all earth's joys are theirs: as Athens' fool
Grinn'd from the port, on every sail his own,
They grin; but wherefore? and how long the
laugh?
Half ignorance, their mirth; and half, a lie:
To cheat the world, and cheat themselves, they smile. Hard either task! The most abandon'd own,
That others, if abandon'd, are undone:
Then, for themselves, the moment reason wakes, (And Providence denies it long repose),
O how laborious is their gaiety!
They scarce can swallow their ebullient spleen,
Scarce muster patience to support the farce,
And pump sad laughter till the curtain falls.
Scarce, did I say? ? Some cannot sit it out;
Oft their own daring hands the curtain draw,
And shew us what their joy, by their despair.
The clotted hair! gored breast! blaspheming eye! Its impious fury still alive in death!
Shut, shut the shocking scene.-But Heaven denies
A cover to such guilt; and so should man.
Look round, LORENZO! see the reeking blade;
Th' envenom'd phial, and the fatal ball;
The strangling cord, and suffocating stream;
The loathsome rottenness, and foul decays
From raging riot (slower suicides !)
And pride in these, more execrable still!
How horrid all to thought!-but horrors, these,
That vouch the truth; and aid my feeble song.
From vice, sense, fancy, no man can be bless'd;
Bliss is too great, to lodge within an hour.
When an immortal being aims at bliss,
Duration is essential to the name.
O for a joy from reason! joy from that,
Which makes man, man; and, exercised aright,
Will make him more: a bounteous joy! that gives,
And promises; that weaves, with art divine,
The richest prospect into present peace:
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