And give us up to license, unrecalled, In fume and dissipation, quits her Unmarked; see, from behind her secret stand, The sly informer minutes every fault, And her dread diary with horror fills. Not the gross act alone employs her pen: She reconnoitres fancy's airy band, A watchful foe! the formidable spy, Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp; Our dawning purposes of heart explores, And steals our embryos of iniquity. As all-rapacions usurers conceal Their doomsday-book from all-consuming heirs; Thus, with indulgence most severe, she treats Us spendthrifts of inestimable time; Unnoted, notes each moment misapplied; n leaves more durable than leaves of brass, Writes our whole history. [From Night Thoughts.] NIGHT II. EFFECT OF CONTACT WITH THE WORLD. VIRTUE, for ever frail, as fair, below, Her tender nature suffers in the crowd, Nor touches on the world, without a stain: The world's infectious; few bring back at eve, Immaculate, the manners of the morn. Something we thought, is blotted; we resolved, Is shaken; we renounced, returns again. Each salutation may slide in a sin Unthought before, or fix a former flaw. Nor is it strange: light, motion, concourse, noise, All, scatter us abroad. Thought, outward-bound, charge, And leaves the breast unguarded to the foe. Neglectful of her home affairs, flies off We take fair days in winter, for the spring; And turn our blessings into bane. Since oft Man must compute that age he cannot feel, He scarce believes he's older for his years. [store Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in One disappointment sure, to crown the rest; The disappointment of a promised hour. [From Night Thoughts.] NIGHT II. INSUFFICIENCY OF THE WORLD. 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours; And ask them, what report they bore to heaven; And how they might have borne more welcome news. Their answers form what men expcrience call; If wisdom's friend, her best; if not, worst foe. Oh, reconcile them! Kind experience cries, "There's nothing here, but what as nothing weighs: The more our joy, the more we know it vain; And by success are tutored to despair." Nor is it only thus, but must be so. Who knows not this, though gray, is still a child; Loose then from earth the grasp of fond desire, Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore. [From Night Thoughts.] EFFORT, THE GAUGE OF GREAT- No blank, no trifle, nature made, or meant, Virtue, or purposed virtue, still be thine: devour; DEATH but entombs the body; life And smoke betrays the wide-consum the soul. ing fire: Ruin from man is most concealed when near, [blow. And sends the dreadful tidings in the Is this the flight of fancy? Would it were! Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings, but himself, That hideous sight, a naked human heart. [From Night Thoughts.] NIGHT IV. FALSE TERRORS IN VIEW OF WHY start at death! Where is he? Is past; not come, or gone, he's Ere hope, sensation fails; blackboding man Receives, not suffers, death's tremendous blow. The knell, the shroud, the mattock, The deep, damp vault, the darkness, Imagination's fool and error's wretch, Then on the point of his own fancy falls; And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one. Some hearts, in secret hard, unapt to melt, Struck by the magic of the public eye, Like Moses' smitten rock, gush out amain. Some weep to share the fame of the deceased, Half-round the globe, the tears pumped up by death Are spent in watering vanities of life; So high in merit, and to them so In making folly flourish still more dear: fair. |