The Poems of Philip Freneau Volume I Part 43

35

If heaven in pleasure doth his hours employ-- If sighs and sorrows reach a place like this, They blast his glories, and they damp his joy, They make him wretched in the midst of bliss.

36

And can you yet--and here he smote his breast-- And can you yet bemoan that torpid ma.s.s Which now for death and desolation drest, Prepares the deep gulph of the grave to pa.s.s.

37

You fondly mourn--I mourn Alcander too, Alcander late the living, not the dead; His casks I broach'd, his liquors once I drew, And freely there on choicest dainties fed.

38

But vanish'd are they now!--no more he calls, No more invites me to his plenteous board; No more I caper at his splendid b.a.l.l.s, Or drain his cellars, with profusion stor'd.

39

Then why, my friends, for yonder senseless clay, That ne'er again befriends me, should I mourn?

Yon' simple slaves that through the cane-lands stray Are more to me than monarchs in the urn.

40

The joys of wine, immortal as my theme, To days of bliss the aspiring soul invite; Life, void of this, a punishment I deem, A Greenland winter, without heat or light.

41

Count all the trees that crown Jamaica's hills, Count all the stars that through the heavens you see.

Count every drop that the wide ocean fills; Then count the pleasures Bacchus yields to me.

42

The aids of wine for toiling man were meant; I prize the smiling Caribbean bowl-- Enjoy those gifts that bounteous nature lent, Death to thy cares, refreshing to the soul.

43

Here fixt to-day in plenty's smiling vales, Just as the month revolves we laugh or groan, September comes, seas swell with horrid gales, And old Port Royal's fate may be our own.

44

A few short years, at best, will bound our span, Wretched and few, the Hebrew exile said; Live while you may, be jovial while you can, Death as a debt to nature must be paid.

45

When nature fails, the man exists no more, And death is nothing but an empty name, Spleen's genuine offspring at the midnight hour, The coward's tyrant, and the bad man's dream.

46

You ask me where these mighty hosts have fled, That once existed on this changeful ball?-- If aught remains, when mortal man is dead, Where, ere their birth they were, they now are all.[A]

[A] "_Quaeris, quo jaceas post obitum loco?-- Quo non nata jacent._"--Senec. Troas.--_Freneau's note._

47

Like insects busy, in a summer's day, We toil and squabble, to increase our pain, Night comes at last, and, weary of the fray, To dust and darkness all return again.

48

Then envy not, ye sages too precise, The drop from life's gay tree, that damps our woe, Noah himself, the wary and the wise, A vineyard planted, and the vines did grow:

49

Of social soul was he--the grape he press'd, And drank the juice oblivious to his care; Sorrow he banish'd from his place of rest, And sighs and sobbing had no entrance there.

50

Such bliss be ours through every changing scene; The glowing face bespeaks the glowing heart; If heaven be joy, wine is to heaven a-kin, Since wine, on earth, can heavenly joys impart.

51

Mere glow-worms are we all, a moment shine; I, like the rest, in giddy circles run, And Grief shall say, when I this life resign, "His gla.s.s is empty, and his frolics done!"

52

He said, and ceas'd--the funeral anthem then From the deep choir and hoa.r.s.e-ton'd organ came; Such are the honours paid to wealthy men, But who for Irus would attempt the same?

53

Now from the church returning, as they went, Again they reach'd Alcander's painted hall, Their sighs concluded, and their sorrows spent, They to oblivion gave the Funeral.

54

The holy man, by bishops holy made, Tun'd up to harmony his trembling strings, To various songs in various notes he play'd, And, as he plays, as gallantly he sings.

55

The widow'd dame, less pensive than before, To sprightly tunes as sprightly did advance, Her lost Alcander scarce remember'd more; And thus the funeral ended in a dance.

[157] As far as I can discover, this poem occurs only in the edition of 1786. Freneau seems deliberately to have abandoned it after this edition. A few stanzas from this poem are scattered through the poem ent.i.tled "The s.e.xton's Sermon," _q.v._ Stanza 43 was inserted after stanza 15 of the later versions of "Santa Cruz."

THE BEAUTIES OF SANTA CRUZ[A][158]

1776

Sweet orange grove, the fairest of the isle, In thy soft shade luxuriously reclin'd, Where, round my fragrant bed, the flowrets smile, In sweet delusions I deceive my mind.