96
The Complaint.
Night 5.
To relish what alone subsists hereafter.
Divine, or none, henceforth your Joys for ever.
Of Age the Glory is, to wish to die.
That With is Praise and Promise; it applauds
Past Life, and promises our future Bliss.
What Weakness see not Children in their Sires?
Grand-climacterical Absurdities!
Grey-hair'd Authority, to Faults of Youth,
How shocking! It makes Folly thrice a Fool;
And our first Childhood might our last despise.
Peace and Esteem is all that Age can hope.
Nothing but Wisdom gives the first; the last,
Nothing, but the Repute of being Wise.
Folly bars both; our Age is quite undone.
What Folly can be ranker? Like our Shadows,
Our Wishes lengthen, as our Sun declines.
No With should loiter, then, this Side the Grave.
Our Hearts should leave the World, before the Knell
Calls for our Carcases to mend the Soil.
Enough to live in Tempest, die in Port:
Age should fly Concourse, cover in Retreat
Defects of Judgment; and the Will's subdue;
Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn Shore
Of that vast Ocean it must sail so soon;
And put Good-works on Board; and wait the Wind
That shortly blows us into Worlds unknown.
If unconsider'd too, a dreadful Scene!
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.
Divine, or none, henceforth your Joys for ever.
Of Age the Glory is, to wish to die.
That With is Praise and Promise; it applauds
Past Life, and promises our future Bliss.
What Weakness see not Children in their Sires?
Grand-climacterical Absurdities!
Grey-hair'd Authority, to Faults of Youth,
How shocking! It makes Folly thrice a Fool;
And our first Childhood might our last despise.
Peace and Esteem is all that Age can hope.
Nothing but Wisdom gives the first; the last,
Nothing, but the Repute of being Wise.
Folly bars both; our Age is quite undone.
What Folly can be ranker? Like our Shadows,
Our Wishes lengthen, as our Sun declines.
No With should loiter, then, this Side the Grave.
Our Hearts should leave the World, before the Knell
Calls for our Carcases to mend the Soil.
Enough to live in Tempest, die in Port:
Age should fly Concourse, cover in Retreat
Defects of Judgment; and the Will's subdue;
Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn Shore
Of that vast Ocean it must sail so soon;
And put Good-works on Board; and wait the Wind
That shortly blows us into Worlds unknown.
If unconsider'd too, a dreadful Scene!
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.
Do
