Young's Night Thoughts Part 14

NIGHT SIXTH.

THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED.

PART I.

She[28] (for I know not yet her name in heaven), Not early, like Narcissa, left the scene; Nor sudden, like Philander. What avail?

This seeming mitigation but inflames; This fancied medicine heightens the disease.

The longer known, the closer still she grew; And gradual parting is a gradual death.

'Tis the grim tyrant's engine, which extorts, By tardy pressure's still-increasing weight, From hardest hearts, confession of distress. 10 Oh, the long, dark approach through years of pain, Death's gallery! (might I dare to call it so) With dismal doubt, and sable terror, hung; Sick hope's pale lamp its only glimmering ray: There, fate my melancholy walk ordain'd, Forbid self-love itself to flatter, there.

How oft I gazed, prophetically sad!

How oft I saw her dead, while yet in smiles! 18 In smiles she sunk her grief to lessen mine.

She spoke me comfort, and increased my pain.

Like powerful armies trenching at a town, By slow, and silent, but resistless sap, In his pale progress gently gaining ground, Death urged his deadly siege; in spite of art, Of all the balmy blessings nature lends To succour frail humanity. Ye stars!

(Not now first made familiar to my sight) And thou, O moon! bear witness, many a night He tore the pillow from beneath my head, Tied down my sore attention to the shock, 30 By ceaseless depredations on a life Dearer than that he left me. Dreadful post Of observation! darker every hour!

Less dread the day that drove me to the brink, And pointed at eternity below; When my soul shudder'd at futurity; When, on a moment's point, th' important die Of life and death spun doubtful, ere it fell, And turn'd up life; my t.i.tle to more woe.

But why more woe? More comfort let it be. 40 Nothing is dead, but that which wish'd to die; Nothing is dead, but wretchedness and pain; Nothing is dead, but what enc.u.mber'd, gall'd, Block'd up the pa.s.s, and barr'd from real life.

Where dwells that wish most ardent of the wise?

Too dark the sun to see it; highest stars Too low to reach it; Death, great Death alone, O'er stars and sun, triumphant, lands us there.

Nor dreadful our transition; though the mind, An artist at creating self-alarms, 50 Rich in expedients for inquietude, Is p.r.o.ne to paint it dreadful. Who can take 52 Death's portrait true? The tyrant never sat.

Our sketch all random strokes, conjecture all; Close shuts the grave, nor tells one single tale.

Death, and his image rising in the brain, Bear faint resemblance; never are alike; Fear shakes the pencil; Fancy loves excess; Dark Ignorance is lavish of her shades: And these the formidable picture draw. 60 But grant the worst; 'tis past; new prospects rise; And drop a veil eternal o'er her tomb.

Far other views our contemplation claim, Views that o'erpay the rigours of our life; Views that suspend our agonies in death.

Wrapt in the thought of immortality, Wrapt in the single, the triumphant thought!

Long life might lapse, age unperceived come on; And find the soul unsated with her theme.

Its nature, proof, importance, fire my song. 70 O that my song could emulate my soul!

Like her, immortal. No!--the soul disdains A mark so mean; far n.o.bler hope inflames; If endless ages can outweigh an hour, Let not the laurel, but the palm, inspire.

Thy nature, Immortality! who knows?

And yet who knows it not? It is but life In stronger thread of brighter colour spun, And spun for ever; dipp'd by cruel Fate In Stygian dye, how black, how brittle here! 80 How short our correspondence with the sun!

And while it lasts, inglorious! Our best deeds, How wanting in their weight! our highest joys Small cordials to support us in our pain, And give us strength to suffer. But how great To mingle interests, converse, amities, 86 With all the sons of Reason, scatter'd wide Through habitable s.p.a.ce, wherever born, Howe'er endow'd! to live free citizens Of universal nature! to lay hold By more than feeble faith on the Supreme!

To call heaven's rich unfathomable mines (Mines, which support archangels in their state) 93 Our own! To rise in science, as in bliss, Initiate in the secrets of the skies!

To read creation; read its mighty plan In the bare bosom of the Deity!

The plan, and execution, to collate!

To see, before each glance of piercing thought, All cloud, all shadow, blown remote; and leave 100 No mystery--but that of Love Divine, Which lifts us on the seraph's flaming wing, From earth's Aceldama, this field of blood, Of inward anguish, and of outward ill, From darkness, and from dust, to such a scene!

Love's element! true joy's ill.u.s.trious home!

From earth's sad contrast (now deplored) more fair!

What exquisite vicissitude of fate!

Bless'd absolution of our blackest hour!

Lorenzo, these are thoughts that make man Man, 110 The wise illumine, aggrandize the great.

How great (while yet we tread the kindred clod, And every moment fear to sink beneath The clod we tread; soon trodden by our sons); How great, in the wild whirl of Time's pursuits, To stop, and pause, involved in high presage, Through the long vista of a thousand years, To stand contemplating our distant selves, As in a magnifying mirror seen, Enlarged, enn.o.bled, elevate, divine! 120 To prophesy our own futurities; To gaze in thought on what all thought transcends!

To talk, with fellow-candidates, of joys As far beyond conception as desert, Ourselves th' astonish'd talkers, and the tale!

Lorenzo, swells thy bosom at the thought?

The swell becomes thee: 'tis an honest pride.

Revere thyself;--and yet thyself despise.

His nature no man can o'er-rate; and none Can under-rate his merit. Take good heed, 130 Nor there be modest, where thou should'st be proud; That almost universal error shun.

How just our pride, when we behold those heights!

Not those Ambition paints in air, but those Reason points out, and ardent Virtue gains, And angels emulate; our pride how just!

When mount we? when these shackles cast? when quit This cell of the creation? this small nest, Stuck in a corner of the universe, Wrapt up in fleecy cloud, and fine-spun air? 140 Fine-spun to sense; but gross and feculent To souls celestial; souls ordain'd to breathe Ambrosial gales, and drink a purer sky; Greatly triumphant on Time's farther sh.o.r.e, Where Virtue reigns, enrich'd with full arrears; While Pomp imperial begs an alms of peace.

In empire high, or in proud science deep, Ye born of earth! on what can you confer, With half the dignity, with half the gain, The gust, the glow of rational delight, 150 As on this theme, which angels praise and share?

Man's fates and favours are a theme in heaven.

What wretched repet.i.tion cloys us here!

What periodic potions for the sick! 154 Distemper'd bodies! and distemper'd minds!

In an eternity, what scenes shall strike!

Adventures thicken! novelties surprise!

What webs of wonder shall unravel, there!

What full day pour on all the paths of heaven, And light th' Almighty's footsteps in the deep!

How shall the blessed day of our discharge Unwind, at once, the labyrinths of fate, 162 And straighten its inextricable maze!

If inextinguishable thirst in man To know; how rich, how full, our banquet there!

There, not the moral world alone unfolds; The world material, lately seen in shades, And, in those shades, by fragments only seen, And seen those fragments by the labouring eye, Unbroken, then, ill.u.s.trious, and entire, 170 Its ample sphere, its universal frame, In full dimensions, swells to the survey; And enters, at one glance, the ravish'd sight.

From some superior point (where, who can tell?

Suffice it, 'tis a point where G.o.ds reside) How shall the stranger man's illumined eye, In the vast ocean of unbounded s.p.a.ce, Behold an infinite of floating worlds Divide the crystal waves of ether pure, In endless voyage, without port? The least 180 Of these disseminated orbs, how great!

Great as they are, what numbers these surpa.s.s, Huge, as Leviathan, to that small race, Those twinkling mult.i.tudes of little life, He swallows unperceived! Stupendous these!

Yet what are these stupendous to the whole?

As particles, as atoms ill perceived; As circulating globules in our veins; 188 So vast the plan. Fecundity divine!

Exuberant Source! perhaps, I wrong thee still.

If admiration is a source of joy, What transport hence! Yet this the least in heaven.

What this to that ill.u.s.trious robe He wears, Who toss'd this ma.s.s of wonders from his hand, A specimen, an earnest of his power?

'Tis to that glory, whence all glory flows, As the mead's meanest floweret to the sun, Which gave it birth. But what, this sun of heaven?

This bliss supreme of the supremely blest?

Death, only death, the question can resolve. 200 By death, cheap bought th' ideas of our joy; The bare ideas! solid happiness So distant from its shadow chased below.

And chase we still the phantom through the fire, O'er bog, and brake, and precipice, till death?

And toil we still for sublunary pay?

Defy the dangers of the field and flood, Or, spider-like, spin out our precious all, Our more than vitals spin (if no regard To great futurity) in curious webs 210 Of subtle thought, and exquisite design; (Fine network of the brain!) to catch a fly!

The momentary buzz of vain renown!

A name! a mortal immortality!

Or (meaner still!) instead of grasping air, For sordid lucre plunge we in the mire?

Drudge, sweat, through every shame, for every gain, For vile contaminating trash; throw up Our hope in heaven, our dignity with man?

And deify the dirt, matured to gold? 220 Ambition, Avarice; the two demons these, Which goad through every slough our human herd, 222 Hard-travell'd from the cradle to the grave.

How low the wretches stoop! how steep they climb!

These demons burn mankind; but most possess Lorenzo's bosom, and turn out the skies.

Is it in time to hide eternity?

And why not in an atom on the sh.o.r.e To cover ocean? or a mote, the sun?

Glory and wealth! have they this blinding power? 230 What if to them I prove Lorenzo blind?

Would it surprise thee? Be thou then surprised; Thou neither know'st: their nature learn from me.

Mark well, as foreign as these subjects seem, What close connexion ties them to my theme.

First, what is true ambition? The pursuit Of glory, nothing less than man can share.

Were they as vain, as gaudy-minded man, As flatulent with fumes of self-applause, Their arts and conquests animals might boast, 240 And claim their laurel crowns, as well as we; But not celestial. Here we stand alone; As in our form, distinct, pre-eminent; If p.r.o.ne in thought, our stature is our shame; And man should blush, his forehead meets the skies.

The visible and present are for brutes, A slender portion, and a narrow bound!

These Reason, with an energy divine, O'erleaps; and claims the future and unseen; The vast unseen! the future fathomless! 250 When the great soul buoys up to this high point, Leaving gross nature's sediments below, Then, and then only, Adam's offspring quits The sage and hero of the fields and woods, a.s.serts his rank, and rises into man. 255 This is ambition: this is human fire.

Can Parts or Place (two bold pretenders!) make Lorenzo great, and pluck him from the throng?

Genius and Art, ambition's boasted wings, Our boast but ill deserve. A feeble aid!

Dedalian enginery! If these alone a.s.sist our flight, Fame's flight is Glory's fall.

Heart merit wanting, mount we ne'er so high, 263 Our height is but the gibbet of our name.

A celebrated wretch, when I behold, When I behold a genius bright, and base, Of towering talents, and terrestrial aims; Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere, The glorious fragments of a soul immortal, With rubbish mix'd, and glittering in the dust. 270 Struck at the splendid, melancholy sight, At once compa.s.sion soft, and envy, rise-- But wherefore envy? Talents angel-bright, If wanting worth, are shining instruments In false ambition's hand, to finish faults Ill.u.s.trious, and give infamy renown.

Great ill is an achievement of great powers.

Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray.

Reason the means, affections choose our end; Means have no merit, if our end amiss. 280 If wrong our hearts, our heads are right in vain: What is a Pelham's head, to Pelham's heart?