Young's Night Thoughts Part 15

Hearts are proprietors of all applause.

Right ends, and means, make wisdom: worldly-wise Is but half-witted, at its highest praise.

Let Genius then despair to make thee great; Nor flatter Station: what is station high?

'Tis a proud mendicant; it boasts, and begs; It begs an alms of homage from the throng, 289 And oft the throng denies its charity.

Monarchs and ministers, are awful names; Whoever wear them, challenge our devoir.

Religion, public order, both exact External homage, and a supple knee, To beings pompously set up, to serve The meanest slave: all more is merit's due, Her sacred and inviolable right; Nor ever paid the monarch, but the man.

Our hearts ne'er bow but to superior worth; Nor ever fail of their allegiance there. 300 Fools, indeed, drop the man in their account, And vote the mantle into majesty.

Let the small savage boast his silver fur; His royal robe unborrow'd, and unbought, His own, descending fairly from his sires.

Shall man be proud to wear his livery, And souls in ermine scorn a soul without?

Can place or lessen us, or aggrandize?

Pigmies are pigmies still, though perch'd on Alps; And pyramids are pyramids in vales. 310 Each man makes his own stature, builds himself: Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids: Her monuments shall last, when Egypt's fall.

Of these sure truths dost thou demand the cause?

The cause is lodged in immortality.

Hear, and a.s.sent. Thy bosom burns for power; What station charms thee? I'll install thee there; 'Tis thine. And art thou greater than before?

Then thou before wast something less than man.

Has thy new post betray'd thee into pride? 320 That treacherous pride betrays thy dignity; That pride defames humanity, and calls The being mean, which staffs or strings can raise. 323 That pride, like hooded hawks, in darkness soars, From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.

'Tis born of ignorance, which knows not man: An angel's second; nor his second, long.

A Nero quitting his imperial throne, And courting glory from the tinkling string, But faintly shadows an immortal soul, 330 With empire's self, to pride, or rapture, fired.

If n.o.bler motives minister no cure, Even vanity forbids thee to be vain.

High worth is elevated place: 'tis more; It makes the post stand candidate for thee; Makes more than monarchs, makes an honest man; Though no exchequer it commands, 'tis wealth; And though it wears no riband, 'tis renown; Renown, that would not quit thee, though disgraced, Nor leave thee pendent on a master's smile. 340 Other ambition Nature interdicts; Nature proclaims it most absurd in man, By pointing at his origin, and end; Milk, and a swathe, at first, his whole demand; His whole domain, at last, a turf, or stone; To whom, between, a world may seem too small.

Souls truly great dart forward on the wing Of just ambition, to the grand result, The curtain's fall; there, see the buskin'd chief Unshod behind this momentary scene; 350 Reduced to his own stature, low or high, As vice, or virtue, sinks him, or sublimes; And laugh at this fantastic mummery, This antic prelude of grotesque events, Where dwarfs are often stilted, and betray A littleness of soul by worlds o'errun, And nations laid in blood. Dread sacrifice 357 To Christian pride! which had with horror shock'd The darkest Pagans, offer'd to their G.o.ds.

O thou most Christian[29] enemy to peace!

Again in arms? Again provoking fate?

That prince, and that alone, is truly great, Who draws the sword reluctant, gladly sheathes; 363 On empire builds what empire far outweighs, And makes his throne a scaffold to the skies.

Why this so rare? Because forgot of all The day of death; that venerable day, Which sits as judge; that day, which shall p.r.o.nounce On all our days, absolve them, or condemn.

Lorenzo, never shut thy thought against it; 370 Be levees ne'er so full, afford it room, And give it audience in the cabinet.

That friend consulted, flatteries apart, Will tell thee fair, if thou art great, or mean.

To doat on aught may leave us, or be left, Is that ambition? Then let flames descend, Point to the centre their inverted spires, And learn humiliation from a soul, Which boasts her lineage from celestial fire.

Yet these are they, the world p.r.o.nounces wise; 380 The world, which cancels nature's right and wrong, And casts new wisdom: even the grave man lends His solemn face, to countenance the coin.

Wisdom for parts is madness for the whole.

This stamps the paradox, and gives us leave To call the wisest weak, the richest poor, The most ambitious, unambitious, mean; In triumph, mean; and abject, on a throne.

Nothing can make it less than mad in man, To put forth all his ardour, all his art, 390 And give his soul her full unbounded flight, But reaching Him, who gave her wings to fly.

When blind Ambition quite mistakes her road, And downwards pores, for that which shines above, Substantial happiness, and true renown; Then, like an idiot, gazing on the brook, We leap at stars, and fasten in the mud; At glory grasp, and sink in infamy.

Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!

Thy strength in man, like length of wing in birds, 400 When disengaged from earth, with greater ease, And swifter flight, transports us to the skies; By toys entangled, or in guilt bemired, It turns a curse; it is our chain, and scourge, In this dark dungeon, where confined we lie, Close grated by the sordid bars of Sense; All prospect of eternity shut out; And, but for execution, ne'er set free.

With error in ambition justly charged, Find we Lorenzo wiser in his wealth? 410 What if thy rental I reform? and draw An inventory new, to set thee right?

Where thy true treasure? Gold says, "Not in me:"

And, "Not in me," the diamond. Gold is poor; India's insolvent: seek it in thyself, Seek in thy naked self, and find it there; In being, so descended, form'd, endow'd; Sky-born, sky-guided, sky-returning race!

Erect, immortal, rational, divine!

In senses, which inherit earth, and heavens; 420 Enjoy the various riches Nature yields; Far n.o.bler! give the riches they enjoy; Give taste to fruits; and harmony to groves; Their radiant beams to gold, and gold's bright fire; 424 Take in, at once, the landscape of the world, At a small inlet, which a grain might close, And half create the wondrous world they see.

Our senses, as our reason, are divine.

But for the magic organ's powerful charm, Earth were a rude, uncolour'd chaos still.

Objects are but th' occasion; ours th' exploit; Ours is the cloth,[30] the pencil, and the paint, 432 Which nature's admirable picture draws; And beautifies creation's ample dome.

Like Milton's Eve, when gazing on the lake, Man makes the matchless image man admires.

Say then, shall man, his thoughts all sent abroad, Superior wonders in himself forgot, His admiration waste on objects round, When Heaven makes him the soul of all he sees? 440 Absurd! not rare! so great, so mean, is man.

What wealth in senses such as these! What wealth In Fancy, fired to form a fairer scene Than Sense surveys! In memory's firm record, Which, should it perish, could this world recall From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years!

In colours fresh, originally bright, Preserve its portrait, and report its fate!

What wealth in Intellect, that sovereign power!

Which Sense and Fancy summons to the bar; 450 Interrogates, approves, or reprehends; And from the ma.s.s those underlings import, From their materials sifted, and refined, And in Truth's balance accurately weigh'd, Forms art, and science, government, and law; The solid basis, and the beauteous frame, 456 The vitals, and the grace of civil life!

And manners (sad exception!) set aside, Strikes out, with master hand, a copy fair Of His idea, whose indulgent thought Long, long, ere chaos teem'd, plann'd human bliss.

What wealth in souls that soar, dive, range around, Disdaining limit, or from place, or time; 463 And hear at once, in thought extensive, hear Th' Almighty fiat, and the trumpet's sound!

Bold, on creation's outside walk, and view What was, and is, and more than e'er shall be; Commanding, with omnipotence of thought, Creations new in fancy's field to rise!

Souls, that can grasp whate'er th' Almighty made, 470 And wander wild through things impossible!

What wealth, in faculties of endless growth, In quenchless pa.s.sions violent to crave, In liberty to choose, in power to reach, And in duration (how thy riches rise!) Duration to perpetuate--boundless bliss!

Ask you, what power resides in feeble man That bliss to gain? Is Virtue's, then, unknown?

Virtue, our present peace, our future prize.

Man's unprecarious, natural estate, 480 Improveable at will, in virtue lies; Its tenure sure; its income is divine.

High-built abundance, heap on heap! for what?

To breed new wants, and beggar us the more; Then make a richer scramble for the throng?

Soon as this feeble pulse, which leaps so long Almost by miracle, is tired with play, Like rubbish from disploding engines thrown, Our magazines of h.o.a.rded trifles fly; Fly diverse; fly to foreigners, to foes; 490 New masters court, and call the former fools (How justly!), for dependence on their stay.

Wide scatter, first, our playthings; then, our dust.

Dost court abundance for the sake of peace?

Learn, and lament thy self-defeated scheme: Riches enable to be richer still; And, richer still, what mortal can resist?

Thus wealth (a cruel taskmaster!) enjoins New toils, succeeding toils, an endless train!

And murders peace, which taught it first to shine. 500 The poor are half as wretched as the rich; Whose proud and painful privilege it is At once, to bear a double load of woe; To feel the stings of envy, and of want, Outrageous want! both Indies cannot cure.

A competence is vital to content.

Much wealth is corpulence, if not disease; Sick, or enc.u.mber'd, is our happiness, A competence is all we can enjoy.

Oh, be content, where Heaven can give no more! 510 More, like a flash of water from a lock, Quickens our spirits' movement for an hour; But soon its force is spent, nor rise our joys Above our native temper's common stream.

Hence disappointment lurks in every prize, As bees in flowers; and stings us with success.

The rich man, who denies it, proudly feigns; Nor knows the wise are privy to the lie.

Much learning shows how little mortals know; Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy: 520 At best, it babies us with endless toys, And keeps us children till we drop to dust.

As monkeys at a mirror stand amazed, They fail to find what they so plainly see; 524 Thus men, in shining riches, see the face Of happiness, nor know it is a shade; But gaze, and touch, and peep, and peep again, And wish, and wonder it is absent still.

How few can rescue opulence from want!

Who lives to Nature, rarely can be poor; Who lives to Fancy, never can be rich.

Poor is the man in debt; the man of gold, 532 In debt to Fortune, trembles at her power.

The man of reason smiles at her, and Death.

Oh! what a patrimony this! a being Of such inherent strength and majesty, Not worlds possess'd can raise it; worlds destroy'd Can't injure; which holds on its glorious course, When thine, O Nature! ends; too blest to mourn Creation's obsequies. What treasure, this! 540 The monarch is a beggar to the man.

Immortal! Ages past, yet nothing gone!

Morn without eve! a race without a goal!

Unshorten'd by progression infinite!

Futurity for ever future! Life Beginning still where computation ends!

'Tis the description of a deity!

'Tis the description of the meanest slave: The meanest slave dares then Lorenzo scorn?

The meanest slave thy sovereign glory shares. 550 Proud youth! fastidious of the lower world!

Man's lawful pride includes humility; Stoops to the lowest; is too great to find Inferiors; all immortal! brothers all!

Proprietors eternal of thy love.

Immortal! What can strike the sense so strong, As this the soul? It thunders to the thought; Reason amazes; grat.i.tude o'erwhelms; 558 No more we slumber on the brink of fate; Roused at the sound, th' exulting soul ascends, And breathes her native air; an air that feeds Ambitions high, and fans ethereal fires; Quick kindles all that is divine within us; Nor leaves one loitering thought beneath the stars.

Has not Lorenzo's bosom caught the flame?

Immortal! Were but one immortal, how Would others envy! how would thrones adore!

Because 'tis common, is the blessing lost?

How this ties up the bounteous hand of Heaven! 569 Oh, vain, vain, vain, all else! Eternity!

A glorious and a needful refuge, that, From vile imprisonment, in abject views.

'Tis immortality, 'tis that alone, Amid life's pains, abas.e.m.e.nts, emptiness, The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill.

That only, and that amply, this performs; Lifts us above life's pains, her joys above; Their terror those, and these their l.u.s.tre lose; Eternity depending covers all; Eternity depending all achieves; 580 Sets earth at distance; casts her into shades; Blends her distinctions; abrogates her powers; The low, the lofty, joyous, and severe, Fortune's dread frowns, and fascinating smiles, Make one promiscuous and neglected heap, The man beneath; if I may call him man, Whom immortality's full force inspires.

Nothing terrestrial touches his high thought; Suns shine unseen, and thunders roll unheard, By minds quite conscious of their high descent, 590 Their present province, and their future prize; Divinely darting upward every wish, 592 Warm on the wing, in glorious absence lost!

Doubt you this truth? Why labours your belief?

If earth's whole orb by some due distanced eye Were seen at once, her towering Alps would sink, And levell'd Atlas leave an even sphere.

Thus earth, and all that earthly minds admire, Is swallow'd in eternity's vast round.

To that stupendous view, when souls awake, 600 So large of late, so mountainous to man, Time's toys subside; and equal all below.

Enthusiastic, this? Then all are weak, But rank enthusiasts. To this G.o.dlike height Some souls have soar'd; or martyrs ne'er had bled, And all may do, what has by man been done.