Young's Night Thoughts Part 11

I am not pent in darkness; rather say (If not too bold) in darkness I'm embower'd.

Delightful gloom! the cl.u.s.tering thoughts around Spontaneous rise, and blossom in the shade; But droop by day, and sicken in the sun.

Thought borrows light elsewhere; from that first fire, Fountain of animation! whence descends Urania, my celestial guest! who deigns 210 Nightly to visit me, so mean; and now, Conscious how needful discipline to man, From pleasing dalliance with the charms of Night My wandering thought recalls, to what excites Far other beat of heart! Narcissa's tomb!

Or is it feeble nature calls me back, And breaks my spirit into grief again?

Is it a Stygian vapour in my blood?

A cold, slow puddle, creeping through my veins?

Or is it thus with all men?--Thus with all. 220 What are we? how unequal! Now we soar, And now we sink; to be the same, transcends Our present prowess. Dearly pays the soul For lodging ill; too dearly rents her clay. 224 Reason, a baffled counsellor! but adds The blush of weakness to the bane of woe.

The n.o.blest spirit fighting her hard fate, In this damp, dusky region, charged with storms, But feebly flutters, yet untaught to fly; Or, flying, short her flight, and sure her fall.

Our utmost strength, when down, to rise again; And not to yield, though beaten, all our praise. 232 'Tis vain to seek in men for more than man.

Though proud in promise, big in previous thought, Experience damps our triumph. I, who late, Emerging from the shadows of the grave, Where grief detain'd me prisoner, mounting high, Threw wide the gates of everlasting day, And call'd mankind to glory, shook off pain, Mortality shook off, in ether pure, 240 And struck the stars; now feel my spirits fail; They drop me from the zenith; down I rush, Like him whom fable fledged[18] with waxen wings, In sorrow drown'd--but not in sorrow lost.

How wretched is the man who never mourn'd!

I dive for precious pearl in sorrow's stream: Not so the thoughtless man that only grieves; Takes all the torment, and rejects the gain; (Inestimable gain!) and gives Heaven leave To make him but more wretched, not more wise. 250 If wisdom is our lesson (and what else Enn.o.bles man? what else have angels learn'd?), Grief! more proficients in thy school are made, Than genius, or proud learning, e'er could boast.

Voracious learning, often over-fed, Digests not into sense her motley meal.

This book-case, which dark booty almost burst, 257 This forager on others' wisdom, leaves Her native farm, her reason, quite untill'd.

With mix'd manure she surfeits the rank soil, Dung'd, but not dress'd; and rich to beggary.

A pomp untameable of weeds prevails.

Her servant's wealth, enc.u.mber'd wisdom mourns. 263 And what says Genius? "Let the dull be wise."

Genius, too hard for right, can prove it wrong; And loves to boast, where blush men less inspired.

It pleads exemption from the laws of sense; Considers reason as a leveller; And scorns to share a blessing with the crowd.

That wise it could be, thinks an ample claim 270 To glory, and to pleasure gives the rest.

Cra.s.sus but sleeps, Ardelio is undone.

Wisdom less shudders at a fool, than wit.

But Wisdom smiles, when humbled mortals weep.

When sorrow wounds the breast, as ploughs the glebe,[19]

And hearts obdurate feel her softening shower; Her seed celestial, then, glad wisdom sows; Her golden harvest triumphs in the soil.

If so, Narcissa[20], welcome my Relapse; I'll raise a tax on my calamity, 280 And reap rich compensation from my pain.

I'll range the plenteous intellectual field; And gather every thought of sovereign power To chase the moral maladies of man; Thoughts, which may bear transplanting to the skies, Though natives of this coa.r.s.e penurious soil; Nor wholly wither there, where seraphs sing, Refined, exalted, not annull'd, in heaven.

Reason, the sun that gives them birth, the same In either clime, though more ill.u.s.trious there. 290 These choicely cull'd, and elegantly ranged, 291 Shall form a garland for Narcissa's tomb; And, peradventure, of no fading flowers.

Say on what themes shall puzzled choice descend?

"Th' importance of contemplating the tomb; Why men decline it; suicide's foul birth; The various kind of grief; the faults of age; And Death's dread character--invite my song."

And, first th' importance of our end survey'd.

Friends counsel quick dismission of our grief: 300 Mistaken kindness! our hearts heal too soon.

Are they more kind than He, who struck the blow?

Who bid it do his errand in our hearts, And banish peace, till n.o.bler guests arrive, And bring it back, a true and endless peace?

Calamities are friends: as glaring day Of these unnumber'd l.u.s.tres robs our sight; Prosperity puts out unnumber'd thoughts Of import high, and light divine, to man.

The man how blest, who, sick of gaudy scenes, 310 (Scenes apt to thrust between us and ourselves!) Is led by choice to take his favourite walk, Beneath death's gloomy, silent, cypress shades, Unpierced by vanity's fantastic ray; To read his monuments, to weigh his dust, Visit his vaults, and dwell among the tombs!

Lorenzo[21] read with me Narcissa's stone; (Narcissa was thy favourite) let us read Her moral stone; few doctors preach so well; Few orators so tenderly can touch 320 The feeling heart. What pathos in the date!

Apt words can strike: and yet in them we see Faint images of what we here enjoy.

What cause have we to build on length of life?

Temptations seize, when fear is laid asleep; 325 And ill foreboded is our strongest guard.

See from her tomb, as from an humble shrine, Truth, radiant G.o.ddess! sallies on my soul, And puts delusion's dusky train to flight; Dispels the mists our sultry pa.s.sions raise, From objects low, terrestrial, and obscene; And shows the real estimate of things; 332 Which no man, unafflicted, ever saw; Pulls off the veil from virtue's rising charms; Detects temptation in a thousand lies.

Truth bids me look on men, as autumn leaves, And all they bleed for, as the summer's dust, Driven by the whirlwind: lighted by her beams, I widen my horizon, gain new powers, See things invisible, feel things remote, 340 Am present with futurities; think nought To man so foreign, as the joys possess'd; Nought so much his, as those beyond the grave.

No folly keeps its colour in her sight; Pale worldly wisdom loses all her charms; In pompous promise, from her schemes profound, If future fate she plans, 'tis all in leaves, Like Sibyl, unsubstantial, fleeting bliss!

At the first blast it vanishes in air.

Not so, celestial: would'st thou know, Lorenzo! 350 How differ worldly wisdom, and divine?

Just as the waning and the waxing moon.

More empty worldly wisdom every day; And every day more fair her rival s.h.i.+nes.

When later, there's less time to play the fool.

Soon our whole term for wisdom is expired (Thou know'st she calls no council in the grave): And everlasting fool is writ in fire, 358 Or real wisdom wafts us to the skies.

As worldly schemes resemble Sibyl's leaves, The good man's days to Sibyl's books compare, (In ancient story read, thou know'st the tale), In price still rising, as in number less, Inestimable quite his final hour. 364 For that who thrones can offer, offer thrones; Insolvent worlds the purchase cannot pay.

"O let me die his death!" all nature cries.

"Then live his life"--all nature falters there; Our great physician daily to consult, To commune with the grave, our only cure. 370 What grave prescribes the best?--A friend's; and yet, From a friend's grave, how soon we disengage!

Even to the dearest, as his marble, cold.

Why are friends ravish'd from us? 'Tis to bind, By soft affection's ties, on human hearts, The thought of death, which reason, too supine, Or misemploy'd, so rarely fastens there.

Nor reason, nor affection, no, nor both Combined, can break the witchcrafts of the world.

Behold, th' inexorable hour at hand! 380 Behold, th' inexorable hour forgot!

And to forget it, the chief aim of life, Though well to ponder it, is life's chief end.

Is Death, that ever threatening, ne'er remote, That all-important, and that only sure (Come when he will), an unexpected guest?

Nay, though invited by the loudest calls Of blind imprudence, unexpected still; Though numerous messengers are sent before, To warn his great arrival. What the cause, 390 The wondrous cause, of this mysterious ill? 391 All heaven looks down astonish'd at the sight.

Is it, that life has sown her joys so thick, We can't thrust in a single care between?

Is it, that life has such a swarm of cares, The thought of death can't enter for the throng?

Is it, that time steals on with downy feet, Nor wakes indulgence from her golden dream?

To-day is so like yesterday, it cheats; We take the lying sister for the same. 400 Life glides away, Lorenzo, like a brook; For ever changing, unperceived the change.

In the same brook none ever bathed him twice: To the same life none ever twice awoke.

We call the brook the same; the same we think Our life, though still more rapid in its flow; Nor mark the much, irrevocably lapsed, And mingled with the sea. Or shall we say (Retaining still the brook to bear us on) That life is like a vessel on the stream? 410 In life embark'd, we smoothly down the tide Of time descend, but not on time intent; Amused, unconscious of the gliding wave; Till on a sudden we perceive a shock; We start, awake, look out; what see we there?

Our brittle bark is burst on Charon's sh.o.r.e.

Is this the cause death flies all human thought?

Or is it judgment, by the will struck blind, That domineering mistress of the soul!

Like him so strong, by Dalilah the fair? 420 Or is it fear turns startled reason back, From looking down a precipice so steep?

'Tis dreadful; and the dread is wisely placed, By nature, conscious of the make of man.

A dreadful friend it is, a terror kind, 425 A flaming sword to guard the tree of life.

By that unawed, in life's most smiling hour, The good man would repine; would suffer joys, And burn impatient for his promised skies.

The bad, on each punctilious pique of pride, Or gloom of humour, would give rage the rein; Bound o'er the barrier, rush into the dark, 432 And mar the schemes of Providence below.

What groan was that, Lorenzo?--Furies! rise, And drown in your less execrable yell Britannia's shame. There took her gloomy flight, On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul, Blasted from h.e.l.l, with horrid l.u.s.t of death; Thy friend, the brave, the gallant Altamont, So call'd, so thought--and then he fled the field. 440 Less base the fear of death, than fear of life.

O Britain, infamous for suicide!

An island in thy manners! far disjoin'd From the whole world of rationals beside!

In ambient waves plunge thy polluted head, Wash the dire stain, nor shock the Continent.

But thou be shock'd, while I detect the cause Of self-a.s.sault, expose the monster's birth, And bid abhorrence hiss it round the world.

Blame not thy clime, nor chide the distant sun; 450 The sun is innocent, thy clime absolved: Immoral climes kind nature never made.

The cause I sing, in Eden might prevail, And proves, it is thy folly, not thy fate.

The soul of man (let man in homage bow, Who names his soul), a native of the skies!

High-born, and free, her freedom should maintain, Unsold, unmortgaged for earth's little bribes.

Th' ill.u.s.trious stranger, in this foreign land, 459 Like strangers, jealous of her dignity, Studious of home, and ardent to return, Of earth suspicious, earth's enchanted cup With cool reserve light touching, should indulge On immortality her G.o.dlike taste; There take large draughts, make her chief banquet there.

But some reject this sustenance divine; To beggarly vile appet.i.tes descend; Ask alms of earth, for guests that came from heaven!

Sink into slaves; and sell, for present hire, Their rich reversion, and (what shares its fate) 470 Their native freedom, to the prince who sways This nether world. And when his payments fail, When his foul basket gorges them no more, Or their pall'd palates loathe the basket full; Are instantly, with wild demoniac rage, For breaking all the chains of Providence, And bursting their confinement; though fast barr'd By laws divine and human; guarded strong With horrors doubled to defend the pa.s.s, The blackest, nature, or dire guilt, can raise; 480 And moated round with fathomless destruction, Sure to receive, and whelm them in their fall.

Such, Britons! is the cause, to you unknown, Or worse, o'erlook'd; o'erlook'd by magistrates, Thus criminals themselves. I grant the deed Is madness, but the madness of the heart.

And what is that? Our utmost bound of guilt.

A sensual, unreflecting life, is big With monstrous births, and suicide, to crown The black infernal brood. The bold to break 490 Heaven's law supreme, and desperately rush, Through sacred Nature's murder, on their own, Because they never think of death, they die. 493 'Tis equally man's duty, glory, gain, At once to shun, and meditate, his end.

When by the bed of languishment we sit (The seat of wisdom! if our choice, not fate), Or, o'er our dying friends, in anguish hang, Wipe the cold dew, or stay the sinking head, Number their moments, and, in every clock, 500 Start at the voice of an eternity; See the dim lamp of life just feebly lift An agonizing beam, at us to gaze, Then sink again, and quiver into death, That most pathetic herald of our own; How read we such sad scenes? As sent to man In perfect vengeance? No; in pity sent, To melt him down, like wax, and then impress, Indelible, Death's image on his heart; Bleeding for others, trembling for himself. 510 We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile.

The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry.

Our quick-returning folly cancels all; As the tide rus.h.i.+ng razes what is writ In yielding sands, and smooths the letter'd sh.o.r.e.

Lorenzo! hast thou ever weigh'd a sigh?

Or studied the philosophy of tears?

(A science, yet unlectured in our schools!) Hast thou descended deep into the breast, And seen their source? If not, descend with me, 520 And trace these briny rivulets to their springs.

Our funeral tears from different causes rise, As if from separate cisterns in the soul, Of various kinds, they flow. From tender hearts, By soft contagion call'd, some burst at once, And stream obsequious to the leading eye.

Some ask more time, by curious art distill'd. 527 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, So high in merit, and to them so dear.

They dwell on praises, which they think they share; 533 And thus, without a blush, commend themselves.

Some mourn, in proof that something they could love: They weep not to relieve their grief, but show.

Some weep in perfect justice to the dead, As conscious all their love is in arrear.