Young's Night Thoughts Part 7

Such of our fine ones is the wish refined!

So would they have it: elegant desire!

Why not invite the bellowing stalls, and wilds?

But such examples might their riot awe. 350 Through want of virtue, that is, want of thought (Though on bright thought they father all their flights), To what are they reduced? To love, and hate, The same vain world; to censure, and espouse, This painted shrew of life, who calls them fool 355 Each moment of each day; to flatter bad Through dread of worse; to cling to this rude rock, Barren, to them, of good, and sharp with ills, And hourly blacken'd with impending storms, And infamous for wrecks of human hope-- Scared at the gloomy gulf, that yawns beneath, Such are their triumphs! such their pangs of joy! 362 'Tis time, high time, to shift this dismal scene.

This hugg'd, this hideous state, what art can cure?

One only; but that one, what all may reach; Virtue--she, wonder-working G.o.ddess! charms That rock to bloom; and tames the painted shrew; And what will more surprise, Lorenzo! gives To life's sick, nauseous iteration, change; And straightens nature's circle to a line. 370 Believest thou this, Lorenzo? lend an ear, A patient ear, thou'lt blush to disbelieve.

A languid, leaden iteration reigns, And ever must, o'er those, whose joys are joys Of sight, smell, taste: the cuckoo-seasons sing The same dull note to such as nothing prize, But what those seasons, from the teeming earth, To doating sense indulge. But n.o.bler minds, Which relish fruits unripen'd by the sun, Make their days various; various as the dyes 380 On the dove's neck, which wanton in his rays.

On minds of dove-like innocence possess'd, On lighten'd minds, that bask in virtue's beams, Nothing hangs tedious, nothing old revolves In that for which they long, for which they live.

Their glorious efforts, wing'd with heavenly hope, Each rising morning sees still higher rise; Each bounteous dawn its novelty presents To worth maturing, new strength, l.u.s.tre, fame; 389 While nature's circle, like a chariot-wheel Rolling beneath their elevated aims, Makes their fair prospect fairer every hour; Advancing virtue, in a line to bliss; Virtue, which Christian motives best inspire!

And bliss, which Christian schemes alone ensure!

And shall we then, for virtue's sake, commence Apostates, and turn infidels for joy?

A truth it is, few doubt, but fewer trust, "He sins against this life, who slights the next."

What is this life? How few their favourite know! 400 Fond in the dark, and blind in our embrace, By pa.s.sionately loving life, we make Loved life unlovely; hugging her to death.

We give to time eternity's regard; And, dreaming, take our pa.s.sage for our port.

Life has no value as an end, but means; An end deplorable! a means divine!

When 'tis our all, 'tis nothing; worse than nought; A nest of pains: when held as nothing, much: Like some fair humorists, life is most enjoy'd, 410 When courted least; most worth, when disesteem'd; Then 'tis the seat of comfort, rich in peace; In prospect richer far; important! awful!

Not to be mention'd, but with shouts of praise!

Not to be thought on, but with tides of joy!

The mighty basis of eternal bliss!

Where now the barren rock? the painted shrew?

Where now, Lorenzo! life's eternal round?

Have I not made my triple promise good?

Vain is the world; but only to the vain. 420 To what compare we then this varying scene, Whose worth ambiguous rises, and declines?

Waxes, and wanes? (In all propitious, night 423 a.s.sists me here) compare it to the moon; Dark in herself, and indigent; but rich In borrow'd l.u.s.tre from a higher sphere.

When gross guilt interposes, labouring earth, O'ershadow'd, mourns a deep eclipse of joy; Her joys, at brightest, pallid, to that font Of full effulgent glory, whence they flow. 430 Nor is that glory distant: Oh, Lorenzo!

A good man, and an angel! these between How thin the barrier! What divides their fate?

Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year: Or, if an age, it is a moment still; A moment, or eternity's forgot.

Then be, what once they were, who now are G.o.ds; Be what Philander was, and claim the skies.

Starts timid nature at the gloomy pa.s.s?

The soft transition call it; and be cheer'd: 440 Such it is often, and why not to thee?

To hope the best, is pious, brave, and wise; And may itself procure, what it presumes.

Life is much flatter'd, death is much traduced; Compare the rivals, and the kinder crown.

"Strange compet.i.tion!"--True, Lorenzo! strange!

So little life can cast into the scale.

Life makes the soul dependent on the dust; Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres.

Through c.h.i.n.ks, styled organs, dim life peeps at light; Death bursts th' involving cloud, and all is day; 451 All eye, all ear, the disembodied power.

Death has feign'd evils, nature shall not feel; Life, ills substantial, wisdom cannot shun.

Is not the mighty mind, that son of heaven!

By tyrant life dethroned, imprison'd, pain'd?

By death enlarged, enn.o.bled, deified? 457 Death but entombs the body; life the soul.

"Is Death then guiltless? How he marks his way With dreadful waste of what deserves to shine!

Art, genius, fortune, elevated power!

With various l.u.s.tres these light up the world, Which Death puts out, and darkens human race." 463 I grant, Lorenzo! this indictment just: The sage, peer, potentate, king, conqueror!

Death humbles these; more barbarous life, the man.

Life is the triumph of our mouldering clay; Death, of the spirit infinite! divine!

Death has no dread, but what frail life imparts; Nor life true joy, but what kind death improves. 470 No bliss has life to boast, till death can give Far greater; life's a debtor to the grave, Dark lattice! letting in eternal day.

Lorenzo! blush at fondness for a life, Which sends celestial souls on errands vile, To cater for the sense; and serve at boards, Where every ranger of the wilds, perhaps Each reptile, justly claims our upper hand.

Luxurious feast! a soul, a soul immortal, In all the dainties of a brute bemired! 480 Lorenzo! blush at terror for a death, Which gives thee to repose in festive bowers, Where nectars sparkle, angels minister, And more than angels share, and raise, and crown, And eternize, the birth, bloom, bursts of bliss.

What need I more? O Death, the palm is thine.

Then welcome, Death! thy dreaded harbingers, Age and disease; disease, though long my guest; That plucks my nerves, those tender strings of life; Which, pluck'd a little more, will toll the bell, 490 That calls my few friends to my funeral; 491 Where feeble nature drops, perhaps, a tear, While reason and religion, better taught, Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb With wreath triumphant. Death is victory; It binds in chains the raging ills of life: l.u.s.t and ambition, wrath and avarice, Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power.

That ills corrosive, cares importunate, Are not immortal too, O Death! is thine. 500 Our day of dissolution!--name it right; 'Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich And ripe: what though the sickle, sometimes keen, Just scars us as we reap the golden grain?

More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound.

Birth's feeble cry, and death's deep dismal groan, Are slender tributes low-tax'd nature pays For mighty gain: the gain of each, a life!

But O! the last the former so transcends, Life dies, compared; life lives beyond the grave. 510 And feel I, Death! no joy from thought of thee?

Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires With every n.o.bler thought, and fairer deed!

Death, the deliverer, who rescues man!

Death, the rewarder, who the rescued crowns!

Death, that absolves my birth; a curse without it!

Rich death, that realises all my cares, Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera!

Death, of all pain the period, not of joy; Joy's source, and subject, still subsist unhurt; 520 One, in my soul; and one, in her great Sire; Though the four winds were warring for my dust.

Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night, Though prison'd there, my dust too I reclaim (To dust when drop proud nature's proudest spheres), And live entire. Death is the crown of life: 526 Were death denied, poor man would live in vain; Were death denied, to live would not be life; Were death denied, even fools would wish to die.

Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rise; we reign!

Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies; Where blooming Eden withers in our sight: Death gives us more than was in Eden lost.

This king of terrors is the prince of peace.

When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?

When shall I die?--When shall I live for ever? 536

THE CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH: CONTAINING OUR ONLY CURE FOR THE FEAR OF DEATH; AND PROPER SENTIMENTS OF HEART ON THAT INESTIMABLE BLESSING.

TO THE HONOURABLE MR YORKE.

NIGHT FOURTH.

THE CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH.

A much-indebted muse, O Yorke! intrudes.

Amid the smiles of fortune, and of youth, Thine ear is patient of a serious song.

How deep implanted in the breast of man The dread of death! I sing its sovereign cure.

Why start at Death? Where is he? Death arrived, Is past; not come, or gone, he's never here.

Ere hope, sensation fails; black-boding man Receives, not suffers, Death's tremendous blow.

The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave; 10 The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm; These are the bugbears of a winter's eve, The terrors of the living, not the dead.

Imagination's fool, and error's wretch, Man makes a death, which nature never made; Then on the point of his own fancy falls; And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.

But were death frightful, what has age to fear?

If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe, And shelter in his hospitable gloom. 20 I scarce can meet a monument, but holds My younger; every date cries--"Come away."

And what recalls me? Look the world around, And tell me what: the wisest cannot tell.

Should any born of woman give his thought Full range, on just dislike's unbounded field; Of things, the vanity; of men, the flaws; Flaws in the best; the many, flaw all o'er; As leopards, spotted, or, as Ethiops, dark; Vivacious ill; good dying immature; 30 (How immature, Narcissa's marble tells!) And at his death bequeathing endless pain; His heart, though bold, would sicken at the sight, And spend itself in sighs, for future scenes.

But grant to life (and just it is to grant To lucky life) some perquisites of joy; A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale, Long-rifled life of sweet can yield no more, But from our comment on the comedy, Pleasing reflections on parts well sustain'd, 40 Or purposed emendations where we fail'd, Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge, When, on their exit, souls are bid unrobe, Toss fortune back her tinsel, and her plume, And drop this mask of flesh behind the scene.

With me, that time is come; my world is dead; A new world rises, and new manners reign: Foreign comedians, a spruce band! arrive, To push me from the scene, or hiss me there.

What a pert race starts up! the strangers gaze, 50 And I at them; my neighbour is unknown; Nor that the worst: ah me! the dire effect Of loitering here, of Death defrauded long; Of old so gracious (and let that suffice), 54 My very master knows me not.-- Shall I dare say, peculiar is the fate?

I've been so long remember'd, I'm forgot.

An object ever pressing dims the sight, And hides behind its ardour to be seen.

When in his courtiers' ears I pour my plaint, 60 They drink it as the nectar of the great; And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow.