THE COMPLAINT. NIGHT I. -000 ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY. To the Right Honourable Arthur Onslow, Esq. Speaker of the House of Commons. TIRED Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep! Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes: From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose 5 Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought From wave to wave of fancied misery At random drove, her helm of reason lost : Though now restored, 'tis only change of pain, (A bitter change!) severer for severe. The day too short for my distress; and night, 11 15 Is sunshine to the colour of my fate. Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne In rayless majesty, now stretches forth 20 Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world. 25 30 From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought To reason, and on reason build resolve, (That column of true majesty in man) Assist me: I will thank you in the grave; The grave your kingdom: there this frame shall fall A victim sacred to your dreary shrine. But what are ye? Thou, who didst put to flight Primeval Silence, when the morning stars, Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball; 35 O Thou, whose word from solid darkness struck Through this opaque of nature and of soul, 45 50 The bell strikes one. We take no note of time 55 But from its loss: to give it then a tongue Is wise in man. I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours. Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. It is the signal that demands despatch: How much is to be done! My hopes and fears* Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down-on what? A fathomless abyss; And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour? How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man! 61 65 75 How passing wonder HE who made him such! 70 80 A worm! a god!—I tremble at myself, Triumphantly distress'd! what joy! what dread! What can preserve my life? or what destroy? 85 An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; 90 95 '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, tho' devious, speaks her nature Of subtler essence than the trodden clod, Active, aerial, towering, unconfined, Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall. Een silent night proclaims my soul immortal: Een silent night proclaims eternal day. 100 For human weal Heav'n husbands all events: 105 They live! they greatly live a life on earth On me, more justly number'd with the dead. 110 All, all on earth is shadow, all beyond 120 Is substance; the reverse is folly's creed: How solid all where change shall be no more! 125 This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, Pris'ner of earth, and pent beneath the moon, On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God. 130 140 Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death expire! And is it in the flight of threescore years 145 150 Where falls this censure? It o'erwhelms myself. How was my heart incrusted by the world! 156 |