Shall Truth be silent, because Folly frowns?
Turn the world's history, what find we there
But Fortune's sports, or Nature's cruel claims,
Or woman's artifice, or man's revenge,
And endless inhumanities on man?
Fame's trumpet seldom sounds, but, like the knell,
It brings bad tidings: how it hourly blows
Man's misadventures round the list'ning world!
Man is the tale of narrative old Time;
Sad tale, which high as Paradise begins;
As if, the toil of travel to delude,
From stage to stage, in his eternal round,
The Days, his daughters, as they spin our hours
On Fortune's wheel, where, accident unthought,
Oft' in a moment snaps life's strongest thread,
Each, in her turn, some tragick story tells,
With now and then a wretched farce between,
And fills his chronicle with human woes.
Time's daughters, true as those of men, deceive us ; Not one but puts some cheat on all mankind, While in their father's bosom, not yet ours, They flatter our fond hopes, and promise much Of amiable, but hold him not o'erwise
Who dares to trust them, and laugh round the year,
At s ill-confiding, still-confounded, man,
Confiding tho' confounded: hoping on,
Untaught by trial, unconvinc'd by proof,
And ever looking for the never-seen.
Life to the last, like harden'd felons, lies,
Nor owns itself a cheat till it expires:
Its little joys go out by one and one,
And leave poor man at length in perfect night,
Night darker than what now involves the pole.
O thou, who dost permit these ills to fall
For gracious ends, and wouldst that man should mourn!
O thou, whose hands this goodly fabrick fram'd, 136
Who know'st it best, and wouldst that man should know!
What is this sublunary world? a vapour;
A vapour all it holds; itself a vapour;
From the damp bed of Chaos, by thy beam
Exhal'd, ordain'd to swim its destin'd hour
In ambient air, then melt and disappear.
Earth's days are number'd, nor remote her doom;
As mortal, tho' less transient, than her sons;
Yet they dote on her as the world and they,
Were both eternal, solid, thou a dream.
They dote on what? immortal views apart,
A region of outsides! a land of shadows!
A fruitful field of flow'ry promises!
A wilderness of joys! perplex'd with doubts,
And sharp with thorns! a troubled ocean, spread
With bold adventurers, their all on board;
No second hope, if here their fortune frowns;
Frown soon it must. Of various rates they sail,
Of ensigns various; all alike in this,
All restless, anxious, toss'd with hopes and fears
In calmest skies; obnoxious all to storm,
And stormy the most gen'ral blast of life:
All bound for happiness; yet few provide
The chart of Knowledge, pointing where it lies, 160
Or Virtue's helm, to shape the course design'd:
All, more or less, capricious Fate lament,
Now lifted by the tide, and now resorb'd,
And farther from their wishes than before:
All, more or less, against each other dash,
To mutual hurt, by gusts of passion, driv'n,
And suff'ring more from folly than from Fate.
Ocean! thou dreadful and tumultuous home
Of dangers, at eternal war with man!
Death's capital, where most he domineers,
With all his chosen terrours frowning round,
(Tho' lately feasted high at Albion's cost *)
Wide-op'ning, and loud-roaring still for more!
Too faithful mirror! how dost thou reflect
The melancholy face of human life!
The strong resemblance tempts me farther still:
And, haply Britain may be deeper struck
By moral truth, in such a mirror seen,
Which Nature holds for ever at her eye.
Self-flatter'd, unexperienc'd, high in hope,
When young, with sanguine cheer, and streamers gay,
We cut our cable, launch into the world,
And fondly dream each wind and star our friend:
All in some darling enterprize embark'd;
* Admiral Balchen, &c,
But where is he can fathom its event!
Amid a multitude of artless hands,
Ruin's sure perquisite! her lawful prize!
Some steer aright, but the black blast blows hard,
And puffs them wide of hope: with hearts of proof,
Full against wind and tide, some win their way, 150
And when strong Effort has deserv'd the port,
And tugg'd it into view, 'tis won! 'tis lost!
Tho' strong their oar, still stronger is their fate :
They strike! and, while they triumph, they expire,
In stress of weather most, some sink outright; 195
O'er them, and o'er their names, the billows close;
To-morrow knows not they were ever born.
Others a short memorial leave behind,
Like a flag floating, when the bark's ingulf 'd;
It floats a moment, and is seen no more.
One Cæsar lives; a thousand are forgot,
How few, beneath auspicious planets born,
(Darlings of Providence! fond Fate's elect!)
With swelling sails make good the promis'd port,
With all their wishes freighted! yet ev'n these,
Freighted with all their wishes, soon complain;
Free from misfortune, not from Nature free,
They still are men; and when is man secure?
As fatal time as storm! the rush of years
Beats down their strength; their numberless escapes
In ruin end. And now their proud success
But plants new terrours on the victor's brow:
What pain to quit the world, just made their own,
Their nest so deeply down'd, and built so high!
Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
Wo then apart (if wo apart can be
From mortal man) and Fortune at our nod,
The gay! rich! great! triumphant! and august!
What are they?---The most happy (strange to say)
Convince me most of human misery.
What are they? smiling wretches of to-morrow!
More wretched then than e'er their slave can be,
Their treach'rous blessings, at the day of need,
Like other faithless friends, unmask, and sting:
Then what provoking indigence in wealth!
What aggravated impotence in pow'r!
High titles, then, what insult of their pain!
If that sole anchor, equal to the waves,
Immortal Hope! defies not the rude storm,
Takes comfort from the foaming billow's rage,
And makes a welcome harbour of the tomb.
Is this a sketch of what thy soul admires ? "But here (thou say'st) the miseries of life "Are huddled in a group: a more distinct "Survey, perhaps, might bring thee better news." Look on life's stages; they speak plainer still; The plainer they, the deeper wilt thou sigh. Lok on thy lovely boy; in him behold The best that can befall the best on earth; The boy has virtue by his mother's side:
|