Where the prime actors of the last year's scene;
Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume ?
How many sleep, who kept the world awake
With lustre and with noise! Has Death proclaim'd
A truce, and hung his sated lance on high?
"Tis brandish'd still, nor shall the present year
Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or spread, of feeble life, a thinner fall.
But needless monuments to wake the thought
Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality,
Though in a style more florid, full as plain
As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs.
What are our noblest ornaments, but Deaths
Turn'd flatterers of Life, in paint or marble,
The well stain'd canvass, or the featured stone?
Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene:
Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.
'Profess'd diversions! cannot these escape?'-
Far from it these present us with a shroud,
And talk of death, like garlands o'er a grave.
As some bold plunderers for buried wealth,
We ransack tombs for pastime; from the dust
Call up the sleeping hero; bid him tread
The scene for our amusement. How like gods
We sit; and, wrapp'd in immortality,
Shed generous tears on wretches born to die ;
Their fate deploring, to forget our own!
What all the pomps and triumphs of our lives
But legacies in blossom? Our lean soil,
uxuriant grown, and rank in vanities,
From friends interr'd beneath, a rich manure?
Like other worms, we banquet on the dead;
Like other worms, shall we crawl on, nor know
Our present frailties, or approaching fate?
Lorenzo! such the glories of the world!
What is the world itself? thy world?-a grave.
Where is the dust that has not been alive?
The spade, the plough disturb our ancestors.
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons.
O'er devastation we blind revels keep :
Whole buried towns support the dancer's heel.
The moist of human frame the Sun exhales;
Winds scatter, through the mighty void, the dry:
Earth repossesses part of what she gave,
And the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire:
Each element partakes our scatter'd spoils,
As Nature wide our ruins spread. Man's death
Inhabits all things, but the thought of man.
Nor man alone; his breathing bust expires ;
His tomb is mortal; empires die: where, now,
The Roman? Greek? they stalk, an empty name !
Yet few regard them in this useful light,
Though half our learning is their epitaph.
When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought,
That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,
O Death! I stretch my view, what visions rise!
What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine!
In wither'd laurels glide before my sight!
What lengths of far famed ages, billowed high
With human agitacion, roll along
In unsubstantial images of air!
The melancholy ghosts of dead Renown,
Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause, 120
With penitential aspect, as they pass,
All point at earth, and hiss at human pride;
The wisdom of the wise, and prancings of the great. But, O Lorenzo! far the rest above,
Of ghastly nature, and enormous size,
One form assaults my sight, and chills my blood,
And shakes my frame. Of one departed World
I see the mighty shadow: oozy wreath
And dismal sea-weed crown her: o'er her urn
Reclined, she weeps her desolated realms,
And bloated sons; and, weeping, prophesies
Another's dissolution, soon, in flames :
But, like Cassandra, prophesies in vain :
In vain to many; not, I trust, to thee.
For, know'st thou not, or art thou loath to know, The great decree, the counsel of the skies? Deluge and Conflagration, dreadful powers!
Prime ministers of vengeance! chain'd in caves
Distinct, apart, the giant furies roar ;
Apart, or such their horrid rage for ruin,
In mutual conflict would they rise, and wage
Eternal war, till one was quite devour'd.
But not for this ordain'd their boundless rage
When Heaven's inferior instruments of wratz,
War, famine, pestilence, are and too weak
To scourge a world for her e mous crimes,
These are let loose alternate: down they rush,
Swift and tempestuous, from the' eternal throne,
With irresistible commission arm'd,
The world, in vain corrected, to destroy;
And ease Creation of the shocking scene.
Seest thou, Lorenzo! what depends on man?
The fate of Nature, as for man her birth.
Earth's actors change Earth's transitory scenes,
And make Creation groan with human guilt.
How must it groan, in a new deluge whelm'd,
But not of waters! At the destined hour,
By the loud trumpet summon'd to the charge,
See all the formidable sons of fire,
Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play 160
Their various engines: all at once disgorge
Their blazing magazines; and take, by storm,
This poor terrestrial citadel of man.
Amazing period! when each mountain height
Outburns Vesuvius; rocks eternal pour
Their melted mass, as rivers once they pour'd;
Stars rush, and final Ruin fiercely drives
Her ploughshare o'er Creation!—while aloft,
More than astonishment: if more can be'
Far other firmament than e'er was seen,
Than e'er was thought by man! far otlier stars!
Stars animate, that govern these of fire;
Far other sun!-a Sun, O how unlike
The Babe at Bethlehem! how unlike the Man
That groan'd on Calvary !-yet He it is;
That Man of sorrows! O how changed! what pomp
In grandeur terrible all Heaven descends!
And gods, ambitious, triumph in his train.
A swift archangel, with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds that darken and disgrace
The scene divine, sweeps stars and suns aside.
And now, all dross removed, Heaven's own pure day,
Full on the confines of our ether flames,
While (dreadful contrast !) far, how far beneath!
Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing seas
And storms sulphureous; her voracious jaws
Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey.
Lorenzo! welcome to this scene; the last
In Nature's course, the first in Wisdom's thought.
This strikes, if aught can strike thee; this awakes 190
The most supine; this snatches man from death.
Rouse, rouse, Lorenzo then, and follow me,
Where truth, the most momentous man can hear,
Loud calls my soul, and ardour wings her flight.
I find my inspiration in my theme:
The grandeur of my subject is my Muse.
At midnight, when mankind is wrapp'd in peace,
And worldly Fancy feeds on golden dreams,
To give more dread to man's most dreadful hour;
At midnight, 'tis presumed, this pomp will burst
From tenfold darkness, sudden as the spark
From smitten steel; from nitrous grain the blaze.
Man, starting from his couch, shall sleep no more!
The day is broke, which never more shall close!
Above, around, beneath, amazement all!
arror and glory join'd in their extremes !
God in grandeur, and our world on fire!
All Nature struggling in the pangs of death!
Dost thou not hear her? dost thou not deplore
Her strong convulsions, and her final groan?
Where are we now? Ah me! the ground is gone
On which we stood, Lorenzo! while thou mayst,
Provide more firm support, or sink for ever!
Where? how? from whence? Vain hope! it is too late!
Where, where, for shelter, shall the guilty fly, 215
When consternation turns the good man pale!
Great day! for which all other days were made; For which earth rose from Chaos, man from earth, And an eternity, the date of gods,
Descended on poor earth-created man!
Great day of dread, decision, and despair!
At thought of thee each sublunary wish
Lets go its eager grasp, and drops the world,
And catches at each reed of hope in Heaven.
At thought of thee !—and art thou absent then? 225
Lorenzo! no; 'tis here ;-it is begun:
Already is begun the grand assize,
In thee, in all: deputed Conscience scales
The dread tribunal, and forestals our doom;
Forestals, and, by forestalling, proves it sure.
Why on himself should man void judgment pass?
Is idle Nature laughing at her sons?
Who Conscience sent, her sentence will support,
And God above assert that God in man.
Thrice happy they! that enter now the court 235 Heaven opens in their bosoms: but how rare,
Ah me! that magnanimity, how rare !
What hero, like the man who stands himself;
Who dares to meet his naked heart alone;
Who hears intrepid the full charge it brings,
Resolved to silence future murmurs there!
The coward flies, and, flying, is undone.
(Art thou a coward? no :) the coward flies;
Thinks, but thinks slightly; asks, but fears to know Asks What is truth with Pilate, and retires; 24
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