Bliss! sublunary bliss! proud words, and vain!
Implicit treason to divine decree!
A bold invasion of the rights of heaven!
I clasp❜d the phantoms, and I found them air.
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace,
What darts of agony had miss'd my heart!
Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
The sun himself by thy permission shines,
And one day thou shalt pluck him from his sphere :-
Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust
Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean?
Why thy peculiar rancour wreak'd on me?
Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?
Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain ;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.
O Cynthia! why so pale? dost thou lament
Thy wretched neighbour? grieve to see thy wheel
Of ceaseless change outwhirl'd in human life?
How wanes my borrow'd bliss! from Fortune's smile,
Precarious courtesy! not virtue's sure,
Self-given, solar ray of sound delight.
In ev'ry vary'd posture, place, and hour,
How widow'd ev'ry thought of ev'ry joy!
Thought, busy thought, too busy for my peace!
Through the dark postern of time long elaps'
Led softly, by the stillness of the night,
Led, like a murderer, (and such it proves)
Strays, (wretched rover !) o'er the pleasing past;
In quest of wretchedness perversely strays,
And finds all desert now; and meets the ghosts
Of my departed joys, a numʼrous train !
I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet comfort's blasted clusters I lament;
I tremble at the blessings once so dear,
And ev'ry pleasure pains me to the heart.
Yet why complain? or why complain for one?
Hangs out the sun his lustre but for me,
The single man? are angels all beside?
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
Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind.
God's image, disinherited of day,
Here plung'd 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 thro' realms their valour sav'd,
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 o'er 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 doat on most
From that for which we doat, felicity?
The smoothest course of Nature has its pains,
And truest friends, thro' 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.
A part how small of the terraqueous globe
Is tenanted by man? the rest a waste,
Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands!
Wild haunts of monsters, poison, stings, and death.
Such is earth's melancholy map! but, far
More sad! this earth is a true map of man:
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights
To Woe's wide empire, where deep troubles toss,
Loud sorrows howl, envenom'd passions bite,
Rav'nous calamities our vitals seize,
And threat'ning Fate wide opens to devour.
What then am I, who sorrow for myself?
In age, in infancy, from others' aid
Is all our hope: to teach us to be kind;
That Nature's first, last lesson to mankind.
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels.
More gen'rous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts;
And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.
TO NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
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