Beware, Lorenzo,1 a slow sudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate surprise!
Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead; 390
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,
Forever on the brink of being born."
All pay themselves the compliment to think They one day shall not drivel: and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future selves applaud;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead. Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's to wisdom they consign.
The thing they can't but purpose, they post-
'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool,
And scarce in human wisdom to do more. 410
All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage: when young,
indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous sons our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool,
Knows it at forty and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magninimity of thought
Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.
1 probably the Duke of Wharton perquisite
LADY WINCHILSEA (1661-1720)
In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confin'd,
And only gentle zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings;
Or from some tree, fam'd for the owl's delight,
She, hollowing clear, directs the wand'rer
right;
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly vail the Heav'ns mysterious face; When in some river, overhung with green, The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshen'd grass now bears itself upright, And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite, Whence springs the woodbind and the bramble-rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip shelter'd grows; Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes, Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes; When scatter'd glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Show trivial beauties watch their hour to shine,
Whilst Salisb'ry 1 stands the test of every light In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright; 20 When odours which declin'd repelling day Thro' temp'rate air uninterrupted stray; When darken'd groves their softest shadows
1 the Countess of Salisbury
Well do I know thee by thy trusty yew, Cheerless, unsocial plant! that loves to dwell Midst skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms: Where light-heel'd ghosts, and visionary shades,
Beneath the wan cold moon (as fame reports) Embodied, thick, perform their mystic rounds. No other merriment, dull tree! is thine.
See yonder hallow'd fane; the pious work Of names once fam'd, now dubious or forgot, And buried midst the wreck of things which were;
There lie interr'd the more illustrious dead. The wind is up: hark! how it howls! Methinks
Till now I never heard a sound so dreary: Doors creak, and windows clap, and night's foul bird,
Rook'd' in the spire, screams loud: the gloomy aisles,
Black-plaster'd, and hung round with shreds of 'scutcheons
And tatter'd coats of arms, send back the sound
Laden with heavier airs, from the low vaults, The mansions of the dead. - Rous'd from their slumbers,
JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748)
The keener tempests come: and fuming dun
From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend-in whose capacious womb
A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed.
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;
And the sky saddens with the gathered storm.
Through the hushed air the whitening shower
descends,
At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day 231
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow
melts
Along the mazy current. Low, the woods
Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-
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Or rushing thence, in one diffusive band, They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog Compelled, to where the mazy-running brook Forms a deep pool; this bank abrupt and high,
And that, fair-spreading in a pebbled shore. Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil, The clamour much, of men, and boys, and dogs.
Ere the soft, fearful people to the flood Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain,
On some impatient seizing, hurls them in: 380
Emboldened then, nor hesitating more,
Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave,
And panting labour to the farther shore.
Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece
Has drunk the flood, and from his lively
haunt
The trout is banished by the sordid stream;
Heavy and dripping, to the breezy brow
Slow move the harmless race; where, as they
spread
Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,
Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild
Outrageous tumult means, their loud com-
plaints
The country fill and, tossed from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed,
Head above head; and ranged in lusty rows
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding
shears.
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay-drest maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned, 400
Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and
Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherdking;
While the glad circle round them yield their
souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
Meantime, their joyous task goes on apace:
Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some,
Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side,
To stamp his master's cypher ready stand;
Others the unwilling wether drag along; 409
And, glorying in his might, the sturdy boy
Holds by the twisted horns the indignant ram.
Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft,
By needy man, that all-depending lord,
How meek, how patient, the mild creature
lies!
What softness in its melancholy face,
What dumb complaining innocence appears!
Fear not, ye gentle tribes, 'tis not the knife
Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved;
No, 'tis the tender swain's well-guided shears,
Who having now, to pay his annual care, 420
Borrowed your fleece, to you a cumbrous load,
Will send you bounding to your hills again.
THE COMING OF THE RAIN
FROM SPRING
At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether; but by fast degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep, 150
Sits on the horizon round, a settled gloom:
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every joy,
The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the
breeze
Into a perfect calm; that not a breath
Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffused
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive
lapse
'Tis silence all, 161
Forgetful of their course.
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye
The fallen verdure. Hushed in short suspense
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;
And wait the approaching sign to strike, at
once,
Into the general choir.
vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand
Man superior
The promised sweetness.
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,
And looking lively gratitude. At last,
The clouds consign their treasures to the
fields;
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion, o'er the freshened world.
Defeating oft the labours of the year,
The sultry south collects a potent blast.
At first, the groves are scarcely seen to stir
Their trembling tops, and a still murmur runs
Along the soft-inclining fields of corn;
But as the aërial tempest fuller swells,
And in one mighty stream, invisible,
Immense, the whole excited atmosphere
Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world,
Strained to the root, the stooping forest pours
A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves. 321
High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in,
From the bare wild, the dissipated storm,
And send it in a torrent down the vale.
Exposed, and naked, to its utmost rage,
Through all the sea of harvest rolling round,
The billowy plain floats wide; nor can evade,
Though pliant to the blast, its seizing force
Or whirled in air, or into vacant chaff
And sometimes too a burst of
Shook waste.
Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends
In one continuous flood. Still over head
The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and
still
The deluge deepens; till the fields around
Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave.
Sudden, the ditches swell; the meadows
swim.
Red, from the hills, innumerable streams
Tumultuous roar; and high above its banks
The river lift; before whose rushing tide,
Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and
swains,
Roll mingled down: all that the winds had
spared,
In one wild moment ruined; the big hopes,
And well-earned treasures of the painful year.
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