So noiseless would I live, such death to find;
Like timely fruit, not shaken by the wind:
But ripely dropping from the sapless bough,
And, dying, nothing to myself would owe.
Thus daily changing, with a duller taste
Of lessening joys, I by degrees would waste:
Still quitting ground by unperceiv'd decay;
And steal myself from Life, and fade away.
WHEN I consider life, 'tis all a cheat;
Yet, fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit :
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay:
To-morrow's falser than the former day;
Lies worse; and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys cuts off what we possessed.
Strange cozenage! None would live past years again ;
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.
THUS like a sailor by the tempest hurled
Ashore, the Babe is shipwrecked on the World ;
Naked he lies and ready to expire,
Helpless of all that human wants require :
Exposed upon inhospitable Earth,
From the first moment of his hapless birth.
BEAUTY and youth are frail: their charms will soon decay,
Their lustre fades as rolling years increase,
And Age still triumphs o'er the ruined face.
This truth, the fair but short-lived lily shows,
And prickles, that survive the faded rose.
Learn, lovely Boy: be with instruction wise;
Beauty and youth misspent are past advice:
Then cultivate the mind with wit and fame:
Those lasting charms survive the fun'ral flame.
AND could we choose the time and choose aright, 'Tis best to die our honour at the height.
When we have done our ancestors no shame,
But served our friends, and well secured our fame.
Then should we wish our happy life to close,
And leave no more for fortune to dispose,
So should we make our death a glad relief
From future shame, from sickness, and from grief,
Enjoying while we live the present hour,
And dying in our excellence and flower.
DIM as the borrowed beams of moon and stars,
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,
Is Reason to the soul; and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here, so Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere,
So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight,—
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
TILL, like a clock worn out with beating time, The weary wheels of life at last stood still.
MEN are but children of a larger growth;
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving too, and full as vain ;
And yet the soul shut up in her dark room,
Viewing so clear abroad, at home sees nothing;
But like a mole in earth, busy and blind,
Works all her folly up, and casts it outward
To the world's view.
THE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. (From "The Hind and the Panther.")
ONE in herself, not rent by schism or sound,
Entire, one solid shining diamond,
Not sparkles shattered into sects like you:
One is the Church, and must be to be true,
One central principle of unity;
As undivided, so from errors free;
As one in faith, so one in sanctity.
Thus she, and none but she, the insulting rage
Of heretics opposed from age to age;
Still, when the giant-brood invades her throne,
She stoops from heaven and meets them half way down, And with paternal thunder vindicates her crown.
But like Egyptian sorcerers you stand,
And vainly lift aloft your magic wand
To sweep away the swarms of vermin from the land.
You could like them, with like infernal force,
Produce the plague, but not arrest the course.
But when the boils and blotches with disgrace
And public scandal sat upon the face,
Themselves attacked, the magi strove no more,
They saw God's finger, and their fate deplore;
Themselves they could not cure of the dishonest sore.
Thus one, thus pure, behold her largely spread,
Like the fair ocean from her mother-bed;
From east to west triumphantly she rides,
All shores are watered by her wealthy tides.
The Gospel-sound, diffused from pole to pole,
Where winds can carry and where waves can roll,
The self-same doctrine of the sacred page
Conveyed to every clime, in every age.
My soul lies hid in shades of grief,
Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes
She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.
AH, how sweet it is to love!
Ah, how gay is young desire!
And what pleasing pains we prove
When we first approach love's fire!
Pains of love are sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.
Sighs which are from lovers blown
Do but gently heave the heart :
E'en the tears they shed alone
Cure, like trickling balm, their smart.
Lovers, when they lose their breath,
Bleed away in easy death.
Love and time with reverence use,
Treat them like a parting friend;
Nor the golden gifts refuse
Which in youth sincere they send;
For each year their price is more,
And they less simple than before.
Love, like spring-tides full and high,
Swells in every youthful vein;
But each tide does less supply,
Till they quite shrink in again.
If a flow in age appear,
'Tis but rain, and runs not clear.
UNDER MR. MILTON'S PICTURE, BEFORE HIS PARADISE LOST.
THREE poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first, in loftiness of thought surpass'd;
The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go;
To make a third, she join'd the former two.
AH, fading joy! how quickly art thou past!
Yet we thy ruin haste.
As if the cares of human life were few,
And follow fate which would too fast pursue.
See how on every bough the birds express
In their sweet notes their happiness.
They all enjoy and nothing spare,
But on their mother nature lay their care:
Why, then, should man, the lord of all below,
Such troubles choose to know
As none of all his subjects undergo ?
Hark, hark! the waters fall, fall, fall;
And with a murmuring sound
Dash, dash upon the ground,
To gentle slumbers call.
MUST all tradition then be set aside?
This to affirm, were ignorance or pride,
Are there not many points; some needful sure
To saving faith, that Scripture leaves obscure,
Which every sect will wrest a several way?
For what one sect interprets, all sects may.
SELECTIONS FROM ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour blessed,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeathered two-legg'd thing, a son;
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state,
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