635 Though gray our heads, our thoughts and aims are green; 640 Ask Thought for joy; grow rich, and hoard within. Think you the soul, when this life's rattles cease, Has nothing of more manly to succeed? 645 Contract the taste immortal; learn e'en now To relish what alone subsists hereafter. Divine, or none, henceforth your joys for ever! Of age, the glory is to wish to die: How shocking! it makes folly thrice a fool; 655 And our first childhood might our last despise. 660 What folly can be ranker? like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines. No wish should loiter, then, this side the grave. Our hearts should leave the world before the knell Calls for our carcasses to mend the soil. 665 Enough to live in tempest; die in port: Age should fly concourse, cover in retreat 670 And put good works on board, and wait the wind 675 680 All should be prophets to themselves; foresee Their future fate; their future fate foretaste : This art would waste the bitterness of death. The thought of death alone the fear destroys. A disaffection to that precious thought Is more than midnight darkness on the soul, Which sleeps beneath it on a precipice, Puff'd off by the first blast, and lost for ever. Dost ask, Lorenzo, why so warmly press'd, By repetition hammer'd on thine ear, The thought of death? That thought is the machine, The grand machine! that heaves us from the dust, 685 And rears us into men. That thought, ply'd home, Will soon reduce the ghastly precipice O'erhanging hell, will soften the descent, And gently slope our passage to the grave. How warmly to be wish'd! what heart of flesh Would trifle with tremendous? dare extremes? Yawn o'er the fate of infinite? what hand, Beyond the blackest brand of censure bold 690 (To speak a language too well known to thee,) Would at a moment give its all to Chance, 695 And stamp the die for an Eternity! Aid me, Narcissa! aid me to keep pace With Destiny: and, ere her scissars cut My thread of life, to break this tougher thread Of moral death, that ties me to the world. 700 Sting thou my slumbering Reason, to send forth A thought of observation on the foe; To sally, and survey the rapid march Of his ten thousand messengers to man, Who, Jehulike, behind him turns them all. 705 Must I then forward only look for Death? Backward I turn mine eye, and find him there. Man is a self-survivor every year. Man, like a stream, is in perpetual flow. 710 715 720 Shall we then fear lest that should come to pass, Which comes to pass each moment of our lives? If fear we must, let that Death turn us pale Which murders strength and ardour; what remains Should ratner call on Death, than dread his call. 725 Ye partners of my fault, and my decline! Thoughtless of death, but when your neighbour's knell (Rude visitant!) knocks hard at your dull sense, And with its thunder scarce obtains your ear! Be death your theme, in every place and hour; Nor longer want, ye monumental sires! A brother tomb to tell you-you shall die. That death you dread, (so great is Nature's skill !) Know you shall court, before you shall enjoy. 730 But you are learn'd: in volumes deep you sit, 735 In wisdom shallow. Pompous ignorance! Would you be still more learned than the learn'd? Learn well to know how much need not be known, And what that knowledge which impairs your sense. 740 You scorn what lies before you in the page Of indispensable, eternal fruit; 745 Fruit, or which mortals feeding, turn to gods, And dive in science for distinguish'd names, Your learning, like the lunar beam, affords 750 755 Come forth at random; or, if choice is made, The choice is quite sarcastic, and insults 760 All boid conjecture and fond hopes of man. What, smitten, most proclaims the pride of power To bid the wretch survive the fortunate; The feeble wrap the' athletic in his shroud; 765 And weeping fathers build their children's tomb: 770 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. 775 In hoary youth Methusalems may die; And can her gaiety give counsel too? 730 E'en let him sweep his rubbish to the grave; 785 Wretched and old thou givest him; young and gay He takes; and plunder is a tyrant's joy. What if I prove, 'the farthest from the fear Are often nearest to the stroke of Fate ?' All, more than common, menaces an end. A blaze betokens brevity of life : As if bright embers should emit a flame, Glad spirits sparkled from Narcissa's eye, And made Youth younger, and taught Life to live. 790 795 Where lust and turbulent ambition sleep, 800 Death took swift vengeance. As he life detests, By conquest, aggrandizes more his power. But wherefore aggrandized?—By Heaven's decree 805 Thus runs Death's dread commission: Strike, but so As most alarms the living by the dead.' Hence stratagem delights him, and surprise, And cruel sport with man's securities. 810 Not simple conquest, triumph is his aim; And where least fear'd, there conquest triumphs most. This proves my bold assertion not too bold. What are his arts to lay our fears asleep? 815 Like princes unconfess'd in foreign courts, Who travel under cover, Death assumes The name and look of Life, and dwells among us: He takes all shapes that serve his black designs: 820 Though master of a wider empire far Than that o'er which the Roman Eagle flew, |