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On Life, Death, and Immortality.
11
Is heav'n tremendous in its frowns? most sure;
And in its favours formidable too:
Its favours here are trials, not rewards;
A call to duty, not discharge from care;
And should alarm us, full as much as woes;
Awake us to their cause, and consequence;
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our desert;
Awe Nature's tumult, and chastise her joys,
Lest while we clasp, we kill them; nay, invert
To worse than simple misery, their charms.
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bosom friendships to resentment sour'd,
With rage invenom'd rise against our peace.
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire.
Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to Death.
Mine dy'd with thee, Philander! thy last sigh
Dissolv'd the charm; the disinchanted earth
Lost all her lustre. Where, her glitt'ring towers?
Her golden mountains, where? all darken'd down
To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears:
The great Magician's dead! Thou poor, pale piece
Of out-cast earth, in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! thy darling hope so near,
(Long-labour'd prize!) O how ambition flush'd
Thy glowing cheek! Ambition truly great,
Of virtuous praise. Death's subtle seed within,
(Sly, treach'rous miner!) working in the dark,
Smil'd at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon'd
The worm to riot on that rose so red,
Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!
Man's foresight is conditionally wise;
Lorenzo! Wisdom into folly turns
Oft, the first instant, its idea fair
And in its favours formidable too:
Its favours here are trials, not rewards;
A call to duty, not discharge from care;
And should alarm us, full as much as woes;
Awake us to their cause, and consequence;
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our desert;
Awe Nature's tumult, and chastise her joys,
Lest while we clasp, we kill them; nay, invert
To worse than simple misery, their charms.
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bosom friendships to resentment sour'd,
With rage invenom'd rise against our peace.
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire.
Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to Death.
Mine dy'd with thee, Philander! thy last sigh
Dissolv'd the charm; the disinchanted earth
Lost all her lustre. Where, her glitt'ring towers?
Her golden mountains, where? all darken'd down
To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears:
The great Magician's dead! Thou poor, pale piece
Of out-cast earth, in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! thy darling hope so near,
(Long-labour'd prize!) O how ambition flush'd
Thy glowing cheek! Ambition truly great,
Of virtuous praise. Death's subtle seed within,
(Sly, treach'rous miner!) working in the dark,
Smil'd at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon'd
The worm to riot on that rose so red,
Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!
Man's foresight is conditionally wise;
Lorenzo! Wisdom into folly turns
Oft, the first instant, its idea fair
To
