Complete Works of Edward Young Read online

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,

  How complicate, how wonderful, is man!

  How passing wonder He who made him such! 70

  Who centred in our make such strange extremes!

  From different natures marvellously mix’d,

  Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!

  Distinguish’d link in being’s endless chain!

  Midway from nothing to the Deity!

  A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb’d!

  Though sullied and dishonour’d, still divine!

  Dim miniature of greatness absolute!

  An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!

  Helpless immortal! insect infinite! 80

  A worm! a god! — I tremble at myself,

  And in myself am lost! At home a stranger,

  Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, 83

  And wondering at her own: how reason reels!

  O what a miracle to man is man,

  Triumphantly distress’d! what joy, what dread!

  Alternately transported and alarm’d!

  What can preserve my life, or what destroy?

  An angel’s arm can’t snatch me from the grave;

  Legions of angels can’t confine me there. 90

  ’Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof:

  While o’er my limbs sleep’s soft dominion spread,

  What though my soul fantastic measures trod

  O’er fairy fields; or mourn’d along the gloom

  Of pathless woods; or down the craggy steep

  Hurl’d headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool;

  Or scaled the cliff; or danced on hollow winds,

  With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?

  Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature

  Of subtler essence than the trodden clod; 100

  Active, aërial, towering, unconfined,

  Unfetter’d with her gross companion’s fall.

  Even silent night proclaims my soul immortal:

  Even silent night proclaims eternal day.

  For human weal, Heaven husbands all events;

  Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.

  Why then their loss deplore that are not lost?

  Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,

  In infidel distress? Are angels there?

  Slumbers, raked up in dust, ethereal fire? 110

  They live! they greatly live a life on earth

  Unkindled, unconceived; and from an eye

  Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall

  On me, more justly number’d with the dead.

  This is the desert, this the solitude:

  How populous, how vital, is the grave!

  This is creation’s melancholy vault, 117

  The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom;

  The land of apparitions, empty shades!

  All, all on earth, is shadow, all beyond

  Is substance; the reverse is Folly’s creed:

  How solid all, where change shall be no more!

  This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, 123

  The twilight of our day, the vestibule;

  Life’s theatre as yet is shut, and death,

  Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar,

  This gross impediment of clay remove,

  And make us embryos of existence free.

  From real life, but little more remote

  Is he, not yet a candidate for light, 130

  The future embryo, slumbering in his sire.

  Embryos we must be, till we burst the shell,

  Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life,

  The life of gods, O transport! and of man.

  Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts;

  Inters celestial hopes without one sigh.

  Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,

  Here pinions all his wishes; wing’d by heaven

  To fly at infinite; and reach it there,

  Where seraphs gather immortality, 140

  On life’s fair tree, fast by the throne of God.

  What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow

  In His full beam, and ripen for the just,

  Where momentary ages are no more!

  Where time, and pain, and chance, and death, expire!

  And is it in the flight of threescore years

  To push eternity from human thought,

  And smother souls immortal in the dust?

  A soul immortal, spending all her fires,

  Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness 150

  Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm’d, 151

  At aught this scene can threaten or indulge,

  Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,

  To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

  Where falls this censure? It o’erwhelms myself;

  How was my heart encrusted by the world!

  O how self-fetter’d was my grovelling soul!

  How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round

  In silken thought, which reptile fancy spun,

  Till darken’d reason lay quite clouded o’er 160

  With soft conceit of endless comfort here,

  Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!

  Night-visions may befriend (as sung above):

  Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dream’d

  Of things impossible! (could sleep do more?)

  Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!

  Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!

  Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!

  How richly were my noontide trances hung

  With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys! 170

  Joy behind joy, in endless perspective!

  Till at death’s toll, whose restless iron tongue

  Calls daily for his millions at a meal,

  Starting I woke, and found myself undone.

  Where now my phrensy’s pompous furniture?

  The cobwebb’d cottage, with its ragged wall

  Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!

  The spider’s most attenuated thread

  Is cord, is cable, to man’s tender tie

  On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze. 180

  O ye blest scenes of permanent delight!

  Full above measure! lasting beyond bound!

  A perpetuity of bliss is bliss.

  Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,

  That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy, 185

  And quite unparadise the realms of light.

  Safe are you lodged above these rolling spheres;

  The baleful influence of whose giddy dance

  Sheds sad vicissitude on all beneath.

  Here teems with revolutions every hour;

  And rarely for the better; or the best,

  More mortal than the common births of fate.

  Each moment has its sickle, emulous 193

  Of Time’s enormous scythe, whose ample sweep

  Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays

  His little weapon in the narrower sphere

  Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down

  The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss.

  Bliss! sublunary bliss! — proud words, and vain!

  Implicit treason to divine decree! 200

  A bold invasion of the rights of Heaven!

  I clasp’d the phantoms, and I found them air.

  Oh! had I weigh’d it ere my fond embrace,

  What darts of agony had miss’d my heart!

  Death! great proprietor of all! ’tis thine

  To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.

  The sun himself by thy permission shines;

  And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his sphere.

  Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust

  Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean? 210

  Why thy peculiar rancour wreak’d on me?
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  Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?

  Thy shaft flew thrice;2 and thrice my peace was slain;

  And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill’d her horn.

  O Cynthia! why so pale? dost thou lament

  Thy wretched neighbour? grieve to see thy wheel

  Of ceaseless change outwhirl’d in human life? 217

  How wanes my borrow’d bliss! from fortune’s smile,

  Precarious courtesy! not virtue’s sure,

  Self-given, solar ray of sound delight.

  In every varied posture, place, and hour,

  How widow’d every thought of every joy!

  Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace!

  Through the dark postern of time long lapsed, 224

  Led softly, by the stillness of the night,

  Led, like a murderer, (and such it proves!)

  Strays (wretched rover!) o’er the pleasing past;

  In quest of wretchedness perversely strays;

  And finds all desert now; and meets the ghosts

  Of my departed joys; a numerous train! 230

  I rue the riches of my former fate;

  Sweet comfort’s blasted clusters I lament;

  I tremble at the blessings once so dear;

  And every pleasure pains me to the heart.

  Yet why complain? or why complain for one?

  Hangs out the sun his lustre but for me,

  The single man? Are angels all beside?

  I mourn for millions: ’tis the common lot;

  In this shape, or in that, has fate entail’d

  The mother’s throes on all of woman born, 240

  Not more the children, than sure heirs, of pain.

  War, famine, pest, volcano, storm, and fire,

  Intestine broils, oppression, with her heart

  Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind.

  God’s image disinherited of day,

  Here, plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made.

  There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,

  Are hammer’d to the galling oar for life;

  And plough the winter’s wave, and reap despair.

  Some, for hard masters, broken under arms, 250

  In battle lopp’d away, with half their limbs, 251

  Beg bitter bread through realms their valour saved,

  If so the tyrant, or his minion, doom.

  Want and incurable disease (fell pair!)

  On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize

  At once; and make a refuge of the grave.

  How groaning hospitals eject their dead!

  What numbers groan for sad admission there!

  What numbers, once in fortune’s lap high-fed,

  Solicit the cold hand of charity! 260

  To shock us more, solicit it in vain!

  Ye silken sons of pleasure! since in pains

  Ye rue more modish visits, visit here,

  And breathe from your debauch: give, and reduce

  Surfeit’s dominion o’er you: but so great

  Your impudence, you blush at what is right.

  Happy, did sorrow seize on such alone!

  Not prudence can defend, or virtue save;

  Disease invades the chastest temperance;

  And punishment the guiltless; and alarm, 270

  Through thickest shades pursues the fond of peace.

  Man’s caution often into danger turns,

  And his guard falling, crushes him to death.

  Not happiness itself makes good her name!

  Our very wishes give us not our wish.

  How distant oft the thing we doat on most,

  From that for which we doat, felicity!

  The smoothest course of nature has its pains;

  And truest friends, through error, wound our rest.

  Without misfortune, what calamities! 280

  And what hostilities, without a foe!

  Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.

  But endless is the list of human ills,

  And sighs might sooner fail, than cause to sigh.

  A part how small of the terraqueous globe 285

  Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,

  Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands:

  Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death.

  Such is earth’s melancholy map! But, far

  More sad! this earth is a true map of man.

  So bounded are its haughty lord’s delights

  To woe’s wide empire; where deep troubles toss,

  Loud sorrows howl, envenom’d passions bite, 293

  Ravenous calamities our vitals seize,

  And threatening fate wide opens to devour.

  What then am I, who sorrow for myself?

  In age, in infancy, from others’ aid

  Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind.

  That, nature’s first, last lesson to mankind;

  The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels; 300

  More generous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts;

  And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.

  Nor virtue, more than prudence, bids me give

  Swoln thought a second channel; who divide,

  They weaken, too, the torrent of their grief.

  Take then, O world! thy much-indebted tear:

  How sad a sight is human happiness,

  To those whose thought can pierce beyond an hour!

  O thou! whate’er thou art, whose heart exults!

  Would’st thou I should congratulate thy fate? 310

  I know thou would’st; thy pride demands it from me.

  Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs,

  The salutary censure of a friend.

  Thou happy wretch! by blindness thou art blest;

  By dotage dandled to perpetual smiles.

  Know, smiler! at thy peril art thou pleased;

  Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.

  Misfortune, like a creditor severe,

  But rises in demand for her delay; 319

  She makes a scourge of past prosperity,

  To sting thee more, and double thy distress.

  Lorenzo, Fortune makes her court to thee,

  Thy fond heart dances, while the syren sings.

  Dear is thy welfare; think me not unkind;

  I would not damp, but to secure thy joys.

  Think not that fear is sacred to the storm:

  Stand on thy guard against the smiles of fate.

  Is Heaven tremendous in its frowns? Most sure;

  And in its favours formidable too:

  Its favours here are trials, not rewards; 330

  A call to duty, not discharge from care;

  And should alarm us, full as much as woes;

  Awake us to their cause, and consequence;

  O’er our scann’d conduct give a jealous eye,

  And make us tremble, weigh’d with our desert;

  Awe nature’s tumult, and chastise her joys,

  Lest, while we clasp, we kill them; nay, invert

  To worse than simple misery, their charms.

  Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,

  Like bosom friendships to resentment sour’d, 340

  With rage envenom’d rise against our peace.

  Beware what earth calls happiness; beware

  All joys, but joys that never can expire.

  Who builds on less than an immortal base,

  Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death.

  Mine died with thee, Philander!3 thy last sigh

  Dissolved the charm; the disenchanted earth

  Lost all her lustre. Where her glittering towers?

  Her golden mountains, where? all darken’d down

  To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears: 350

  The great magician’s dead! Thou poor, pale piece

  Of outcast earth, in darkness! what a change 352

  From yesterday! Thy darling hope so near

&
nbsp; (Long-labour’d prize!), O how ambition flush’d

  Thy glowing cheek! ambition truly great,

  Of virtuous praise. Death’s subtle seed within

  (Sly, treacherous miner!), working in the dark,

  Smiled at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon’d

  The worm to riot on that rose so red,

  Unfaded ere it fell; one moment’s prey! 360

  Man’s foresight is conditionally wise;

  Lorenzo!4 wisdom into folly turns

  Oft, the first instant, its idea fair

  To labouring thought is born. How dim our eye!

  The present moment terminates our sight;

  Clouds thick as those on doomsday, drown the next;

  We penetrate, we prophesy in vain.

  Time is dealt out by particles; and each,

  Ere mingled with the streaming sands of life,

  By fate’s inviolable oath is sworn 370

  Deep silence, “where eternity begins.”

  By nature’s law, what may be, may be now;

  There’s no prerogative in human hours.

  In human hearts what bolder thought can rise,

  Than man’s presumption on to-morrow’s dawn!

  Where is to-morrow? In another world.

  For numbers this is certain; the reverse

  Is sure to none; and yet on this perhaps,

  This peradventure, infamous for lies,

  As on a rock of adamant, we build 380

  Our mountain hopes; spin out eternal schemes,

  As we the fatal sisters could out-spin,

  And, big with life’s futurities, expire.

  Not even Philander had bespoke his shroud;

  Nor had he cause; a warning was denied. 385

  How many fall as sudden, not as safe!

  As sudden, though for years admonish’d home.

  Of human ills the last extreme beware,

  Beware, Lorenzo! a slow sudden death.

  How dreadful that deliberate surprise!

  Be wise to-day; ’tis madness to defer;

  Next day the fatal precedent will plead; 392

  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 400

  The palm, “That all men are about to live,”

  For ever 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!