Till enough learn'd the truth it would inspire.
Shall Truth be silent because Folly frowns?
Turn the world's history, what find we there
But Fortune's sports, or Nature's cruel claims,
Or woman's artifice, or man's revenge,
And endless inhumanities on man?
Fame's trumpet seldom sounds but, like the knell,
It brings bad tidings: how it hourly blows
Man s misadventures round the listening world!
Man is the tale of narrative old Time:
Sad tale! Which high as Paradise begins;
As if, the toil of travel to delude,
From stage to stage, in his eternal round,
The Days, his daughters, as they spin our hours
On Fortune's wheel, where accident unthought
Oft, in a moment, snaps life's strongest thread,
Each, in her turn, some tragic story tells
With, now and then, a wretched farce between,
And fills his ehronicle with human woes.
Time's daughters, true as those of men, deceive us;
Not one but puts some cheat on all mankind.
While in their father's bosom, not yet ours,
They flatter our fond hopes, and promise much
Of amiable, but hold him not o'er wise
Who dares to trust them, and laugh round the year,
At still confiding, still confounded, man,
Confiding though confounded; hoping on,
Untaught by trial, unconvinced by proof,
And ever looking for the never seen.
Life to the last, like harden'd felons, lies,
Nor owns itself a cheat till it expires:
Its little joys go out by one and one,
And leave poor man, at length, in perfect night,
Night darker than what now involves the pole.
O Thou, who dost permit these ills to fall For gracious ends, and wouldst that man should mourn! O Thou, whose hands this goodly fabric framed, 130 Who know'st it best, and wouldst that man should know'
What is this sublunary world? a vapour;
A vapour all it holds; itself, a vapour;
From the damp bed of Chaos, by the beam
Exhaled, ordain'd to swim its destined hour
In ambient air, then melt and disappear.
Earth's days are number'd, nor remote her doom,
As mortal, though less transient, than her sons;
Yet they dote on her, as the world and they
Were both eternal, solid; Thou a dream
They dote, on what? immortal views apart,
A region of outsides! a land of shadows!
A fruitful field of flowery promises !
A wilderness of joys! perplex'd with doubts,
And sharp with thorns! a troubled ocean, spread
With bold adventurers, their all on board;
No second hope, if here their fortune frowns;
Frown soon it must. Of various rates they sail,
Of ensigns various; all alike in this,
All restless, anxious, toss'd with hopes and fears
In calmest skies; obroxious all to storm,
And stormy the most general blast of life
All bound for Happiness; yet few provide
The chart of Knowledge, pointing where it lies.
Or Virtue's helm, to shape the course design'd·
All, more or less, capricious Fate lament,
Now lifted by the tide, and now resorb'd,
And farther from their wishes than before:
All, more or less, against each other dash,
To mutual hurt, by gusts of passion driven,
And suffering more from folly than from fate.
Ocean! thou dreadful and tumultuous home
Of dangers, at eternal war with man!
Death's capital, where most he domineers
With all his chosen terrors frowning round.
(Though lately feasted high at Albion's cost*)
Wide opening, and loud roaring still for more '
Too faithful mirror how dost thou reflect
The melancholy face of human life!
The strong resemblance tempts me farther still.
And, haply, Britain may be deeper struck
By moral truth, in such a mirror seen,
Which Nature holds for ever at her eye.
Self-flatter'd, unexperienced, high in hope,
When young, with sanguine cheer and streamers gay, We cut our cable, launch into the world,
And fondly dream each wind and star our friend;
All in some darling enterprise embark`d:
But where is he can fathom its event?
Amid a multitude of artless hands,
Ruin's sure perquisite! her lawful prize!
Some steer aright, but the black blast blows hard,
And puffs them wide of Hope: with hearts of proof,
Full against wind and tide, some win their way,
And when strong Effort has deserved the port,
And tugg'd it into view, 'tis won! 'tis lost!
Though strong their oar, still stronger is their fate:
They strike and, while they triumph, they expire.
In stress of weather most, some sink outright;
O'er them and o'er their names the billows close;
To-morrow knows not they were ever born.
Others a short memorial leave behind,
Like a flag floating, when the bark's ingulf'd;
It floats a moment, and is seen no more.
One Cæsar lives; a thousand are forgot.
How few, beneath auspicious planets born,
(Darlings of Providence! fond Fate's elect!)
With swelling sails make good the promised port,
With all their wishes freighted! yet e'en these,
Freighted with all their wishes, soon complain;
Free from misfortune, not from Nature free,
They still are men; and when is man secure?
As fatal time, as storm! the rush of years
Beats down their strength; their numberless escapes In ruin end. And now their proud success
But plants new terrors on the victor's brow:
What pain to quit the world, just made their own,
Their nest so deeply down'd, and built so high!
Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
Woe then apart (if woe apart can be
From mortal man,) and Fortune at our nod,
The gay! rich! great! triumphant! and august'
What are they?—The most happy (strange to say)
Convince me most of human misery.
What are they? smiling wretches of to-morrow!
More wretched, then, than e'er their slave can be,
Their treacherous blessings, at the day of need,
Like other faithless friends, unmask and sting:
Then what provoking indigence in wealth!
What aggravated impotence in power!
High titles, theu, what insult of their pain!
If that sole anchor, equal to the waves,
Immortal Hope! defies not the rude storm,
Takes comfort from the foaming billow's rage,
And makes a welcome harbour of the tomb.
Is this a sketch of what thy soul admires ?-
'But here (thou sayest) the miseries of life
Are huddled in a group: a more distinct
Survey, perhaps, might bring thee better news.'
Look on life's stages; they speak plainer still;
The plainer they, the deeper wilt thou sigh.
Look on thy lovely boy; in him behold
The best that can befal the best on earth;
The boy has virtue by his mother's side:
Yes, on Florello look: a father's heart
Is tender, though the man's is made of stone;
The truth, through such a medium seen, may make Impression deep, and fondness prove thy friend.
Florello! lately cast on this rude coast
A helpless infant, now a heedless child.
1o poor Clarissa's throes thy care succeeds;
Care full of love, and yet severe as hate!
O'er thy soul's joy how oft thy fondness frowns'
Needful austerities his will restrain,
As thorus fence in the tender plant from harm.
As yet, his Reason cannot go alone,
But asks a sterner nurse to lead it on.
His little heart is often terrified;
The blush of morning, in his cheek, turns pale, 255
Its pearly dew-drop trembles in his eye,
His harmless eye! and drowns an angel there.
Ah! what avails his innocence? the task
Enjoin'd must discipline his early powers!
He learns to sigh, ere he is known to sin;
Guiltless, and sad! a wretch before the fall!
How cruel this! more cruel to forbear.
Our nature such, with necessary pains
We purchase prospects of precarious peace:
Though not a father, this might steal a sigh.
Suppose him disciplined aright (if not,
"Twill sink our poor account to poorer still,)
Ripe from the tutor, proud of liberty,
He leaps enclosure, bounds into the world;
The world is taken, after ten years' toil,
Like ancient Troy, and all its joys his own.
Alas! the world's a tutor more severe,
Its lessons hard, and ill deserve his pains;
Unteaching all his virtuous Nature taught,
Or books (fair Virtue's advocates) inspired
For who receives him into public life?
Men of the world, the terræ-filial breed,
Welcome the modest stranger to their sphere
(Which glitter'd long, at distance, in his sight,)
And in their hospitable arms enclose;
Men who think nought so strong as the romance,
So rank knight-errant, as a real friend;
Men that act up to Reason's golden ¡ule,
All weakness of affection quite subdued;
Men that would blush at being thought sincere, 285
And feign, for glory, the few faults they want;
That love a lie, where truth would pay as well,
As if, to them. Vice shown her own reward.
|