Than Genius or proud Learning e'er could boast. Voracious Learning, often overfed, 255 Digests not into sense her motley meal. This bookcase, with dark booty almost burst, With mix'd manure she surfeits the rank soil, Dung'd, but not dress'd, and rich to beggary: pomp untamable of weeds prevails; 260 Her servant's wealth encumber'd Wisdom mourns. 265 And scorns to share a blessing with the crowd. 270 Wisdom less shudders at a fool than wit. But Wisdom smiles, when humbled mortals weep. When Sorrow wounds the breast, as ploughs the glebe. And hearts obdurate feel her softening shower; 276 And gather every thought of sovereign power Thoughts which may bear transplanting to the skies, 286 Refined, exalted, not annull'd, in Heaven · Reason, the sun that gives them birth, the same 290 These choicely cull'd, and elegantly ranged, And, peradventure, of no fading flowers. Say, on what themes shall puzzled choice descend : 'The' importance of contemplating the tomb; 295 Why men decline it; suicide's foul birth: And, first, the' importance of our end survey'd. Friends counsel quick dismission of our grief. Mistaken kindness! our hearts heal too soon. Are they more kind than He who struck the blow? Who bid it do his errand in our hearts, And banish peace till nobler guests arrive, 300 And bring it back a true and endless peace? 305 The man how bless'd, who, sick of gaudy scenes, (Scenes apt to thrust between us and ourselves!) 311 Is led by choice to take his favourite walk Beneath Death's gloomy, silent, cypress shades, Unpierced by Vanity's fantastic ray; To read his monuments, to weigh his dust, 315 Visit his vaults, and dwell among the tombs! Her moral stone; few doctors preach so well; 320 The feeling heart. What pathos in the date! Apt words cau strike; and yet in them we see What cause have we to build on length of life? See from her tomb, as from an hunble shrine, 325 And puts Delusion's dusky train to flight, 330 Pulls off the veil from Virtue's rising charms; 335 Truth bids me look on nen as autumn leaves, And all they bleed for as the summer's dust Driven by the whirlwind: lighted by her beams, I widen my horizon, gain new powers, See things invisible, feel things remote, 340 Am present with futurities; think nought To man so foreign as the joys possess'd, Nought so much his as those beyond the grave. Pale worldly Wisdom loses all her charms. 345 In pompous promise from her schemes profound, Like sibyl, unsubstantial, fleeting bliss! At the first blast it vanishes in air. Not so celestial. Wouldst thou know, Lorenzo! 350 When later, there's less time to play the fool. Or real wisdom wafts us to the skies. As worldly schemes resembles sibyls' leaves, The good man's days to sibyls' books compare (In ancient story read, thou know'st the tale) In price still rising as in number less, Inestimable quite his final hour. 355 360 For that who thrones can offer, offer thrones; 365 'Oh let me die his death.' all Nature cries. 'Then live his life.'-All Nature falters there Our great physicia. daily to consult, To commune with the grave, our only cure. 370 What grave prescribes the best?-A friend's; and yet From a friend's grave how soon we disengage' E'en to the dearest, as his marble, cold. Why are friends ravish'd from us? 'tis to bind, 375 The thought of Death, which Reason, too supine, Combined, can break the witchcrafts of the world. 380 Behold the' inexorable hour forgot! And to forget it the chief aim of life, Though well to por ler it is life's chief end. Is Death, that ever threatening, ne'er remote, That all important, and that only sure, 385 (Come when he will) an unexpected guest? Nay, though invited by the loudest calls Of blind Imprudence, unexpected still? Though numerous messengers are sent before, To warn his great arrival? What the cause, 390 The wondrous cause, of this mysterious ill? 395 Nor wakes Indulgence from her golden dream? We take the lying sister for the same. 400 Life glides away, Lorenzo! like a brook, For ever changing, unperceived the change. In the same brook none ever bathed him twice; To the same life none ever twice awoke. We call the brook the same: the same we think 405 Our life, though still more rapid in its flow, 410 We start, awake, look out: what see we there ! 415 Is this the cause Death flies all human thought? 420 By Nature, conscious of the make of man, 425 A flaming sword to guard the tree of Life. 430 What groan was that, Lorenzo ?-Furies! rise, 435 So call'd, so thought—and then he fled the field; 440 |