How oft in fields of death thy presence sought, Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought! On foreign mountains may the sun refine The grape's soft juice, and mellow it to wine; With citron groves adorn a distant soil, And the fat olive swell with floods of oil: We envy not the warmer clime, that lies In ten degrees of more indulgent skies; Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine, Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine: How has she oft exhausted all her And makes her barren rocks and h^~ stores, bleak mountains smile. CATO'S SOLILOQUY. 7T must be so Plato, thou reason'st well! Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, Of falling into nought? why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, Through what new scenes and changes must we pass? The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me; But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. Here will I hold. If there's a power above us And that there is, all nature cries aloud Through all her works- he must delight in virtue; And that which he delights in must be happy. But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar. I'm weary of conjectures. must end them. This [Laying his hand on his sword.] Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life, My bane and antidote, are both before me: This in a moment brings me to an end; But this informs me I shall never die. The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years; But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds. What means this heaviness that hangs upon me? This lethargy that creeps through all my senses? Nature oppressed, and harassed out with care, Sinks down to rest. This once I'll favor her, That my awakened soul may take her flight, Renewed in all her strength, and fresh with life, An offering fit for heaven. Let guilt or fear Disturb man's rest: Cato knows neither of them; Indifferent in his choice to sleep or die. MARK AKENSIDE. ON A SERMON AGAINST GLORY. COME then, tell me, sage divine, Toward immortal Glory's throne? For with me nor pomp, nor pleasure. power Of memory her ideal train preserves Entire; or when they would elude her watch, Reclaims their fleeting footsteps from the waste Of dark oblivion; thus collecting all The various forms of being, to present Before the curious eye of mimic art Their largest choice: like Spring's unfolded biocas Exhaling sweetness, that the skilful bee May taste at will from their selected spoils To work her dulcet food. For not the expanse Of living lakes in summer's noontide calm, Reflects the bordering shade and sunbright heavens With fairer semblance; not the sculptured gold More faithful keeps the graver's lively trace, Than he whose birth the sisterpowers of art Propitious viewed, and from his genial star Shed influence to the seeds of fancy kind, Than his attempered bosom must preserve The seal of nature. unchanged There alone, Her form remains. The balmy walks of May There breathe perennial sweets: the trembling chord Resounds forever in the abstracted ear, Melodious; and the virgin's radiant eye, Superior to disease, to grief, and time, Shines with unbating lustre. Thus at length Endowed with all that nature can bestow, The child of fancy oft in silence bends O'er these mixed treasures of his pregnant breast With conscious pride. From them he oft resolves To frame he knows not what excelling things, And win he knows not what sublime reward Of praise and wonder. By degrees the mind Feels her young nerves dilate: the plastic powers Labor for action: blind emotions heave His bosom; and with loveliest frenzy caught, From earth to heaven he rolls his daring eye, From heaven to earth. Anon ten thousand shapes, Like spectres trooping to the wizard's call, Flit swift before him. From the womb of earth, From ocean's bed they come: the eternal heavens Disclose their splendors, and th dark abyss Pours out her births unknown With fixed gaze He marks the rising phantoms. Now compares Their different forms; now blends them, now divides; Enlarges and extenuates by turns; Opposes, ranges in fantastic bands, And infinitely varies. Hither now, Now thither fluctuates his inconstant aim, With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame; But that th' Omnipotent might send him forth In sight of mortal and immortal powers, As on a boundless theatre, to run The great career of justice; to exalt His generous aim to all diviner deeds; To chase each partial purpose from his breast, And through the mists of passion and of sense, And through the tossing tide of chance and pain, To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent Of nature, calls him to his high reward, Th' applauding smile of heaven ? Else wherefore burns In mortal bosoms this unquenched hope, That breathes from day to day sublimer things, And mocks possession? wherefore darts the mind, With such resistless ardor, to embrace Majestic forms; impatient to be free; Spurning the gross control of wilful might; Proud of the strong contention of her toils; Proud to be daring? |