And both at once: a point how hard to gain!
But what can't Wit, when stung by strong desire?
Wit dares attempt this arduous enterprise.
Since joys of Sense can't rise to Reason's taste,
In subtle Sophistry's laborious forge
Wit hammers out a reason new, that stoops
To sordid scenes, and meets them with applause,
Wit calls the Graces the chaste zone to loose,
Nor less than a plump god to fill the bowl:
A thousand phantoms and a thousand spells,
A thousand opiates scatters to delude,
To fascinate, inebriate, lay asleep,
And the fool'd mind delightfully confound.
Thus that which shock'd the judgment shocks no
That which gave pride offence, no more offends.
Pleasure and Pride, by nature mortal foes,
At war eternal, which in man shall reign,
By Wit's address patch up a fatal peace,
And hand in hand lead on the rank debauch,
From rank, refined to delicate and gay.
Art, cursed Art! wipes off the' indebted blush
From Nature's cheek, and bronzes every shame.
Man smiles in ruin, glories in his guilt,
And Infamy stands candidate for praise.
All writ by man in favour of the soul,
These sensual ethics far, in bulk, transcend.
The flowers of eloquence, profusely pour'd
O'er spotted Vice, fill half the letter'd world.
Can
powers of genius exorcise their page,
And consecrate enormities with song?
But let not these inexpiable strains
Condemn the Muse that knows her dignity,
Nor meanly stops at time, but holds the world
As 'tis, in Nature's ample field, a point,
A point in her esteem; from whence to start,
And run the round of universal space,
To visit being universal there,
And being's Source, that utmost flight of mind!
Yet spite of this so vast circumference,
Well knows but what is moral nought is great.
Sing sirens only? do not angels sing?
There is in Poesy a decent pride,
Which well becomes her when she speaks to Prose,
Her younger sister, haply not more wise.
Think'st thou, Lorenzo, to find pastimes here?
No guilty passion blown into a flame,
No foible flatter'd, dignity disgraced,
No fairy field of fiction, all on flower,
No rainbow colours, here, or silken tale;
But solemn counsels, images of awe,
Truths, which Eternity lets fall on man, [spheres,
With double weight, through these revolving
This death-deep silence, and incumbent shade :
Thoughts such as shall revisit your last hour,
Visit uncall'd, and live when life expires;
And thy dark pencil, Midnight! darker still
In melancholy dipp'd, imbrowns the whole.
Yet this, e'en this, my laughter-loving friends!
Lorenzo! and thy brothers of the smile!
If what imports you most can most engage,
Shall steal your ear, and chain you to my song.
Or if you fail me, know the wise shall taste
The truths I sing; the truths I sing shall feel;
And, feeling, give assent; and their assent
Is ample recompense; is more than praise.
But chiefly thine, O Litchfield!—nor mistake;
Think not unintroduced I force my way:
Narcissa, not unknown, not unallied
By virtue, or by blood, illustrious youth!
To thee, from blooming amaranthine bowers,
Where all the language harmony, descends
Uncall'd, and asks admittance for the Muse;
A Muse that will not pain thee with thy praise:
Thy praise she drops, by nobler still inspired.
O thou, bless'd Spirit! whether the Supreme,
Great antemundane Father! in whose breast
Embryo-Creation, unborn being, dwelt,
And all its various revolutions roll'd
Present, though future, prior to themselves;
Whose breath can blow it into nought again,
Or from his throne some delegated power,
Who, studious of our peace, dost turn the thought
From vain and vile to solid and sublime!
Unseen thou lead'st me to delicious draughts
Of inspiration, from a purer stream,
And fuller of the God, than that which burst
From famed Castalia; nor is yet allay'd
My sacred thirst, though long my soul has ranged
Through pleasing paths of moral and divine,
By thee sustain'd, and lighted by the stars.
By them best lighted are the paths of thought;
Nights are their days, their most illumined hours.
By day the soul, o'erborne by life's career,
Stunn'd by the din, and giddy with the glare,
Reels far from reason, jostled by the throng.
By day the soul is passive, all her thoughts
Imposed, precarious, broken, ere mature.
By night, from objects free, from passion cool,
Thoughts uncontrol'd and unimpress'd, the births
Of pure election, arbitrary range,
Not to the limits of one world confined;
But from etherial travels light on earth,
As voyagers drop anchor, for repose.
Let Indians, and the gay, like Indians, fond
Of feather'd fopperies, the Sun adore:
Darkness has more divinity for me;
It strikes thought inward; it drives back the soul
To settle on herself, our point supreme!
There lies our theatre; there sits our judge.
Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene;
"Tis the kind hand of Providence stretch'd out
"Twixt man and vanity; 'tis Reason's reign,
And Virtue's too; these tutelary shades
Are man's asylum from the tainted throng.
Night is the good man's friend, and guardian too;
It no less rescues virtue than inspires.
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,
Neglectful of our home affairs, flies off
In fume and dissipation, quits her charge,
And leaves the breast unguarded to the foe.
Present example gets within our guard,
And acts with double force, by few repell'd.
Ambition fires ambition; love of gain
Strikes, like a pestilence, from breast to breast:
Riot, pride, perfidy, blue vapours breathe;
And inhumanity is caught from man,
From smiling man! A slight, a single glance,
And shot at random, often has brought home
A sudden fever to the throbbing heart
Of envy, rancour, or impure desire.
e see, we hear, with peril; Safety dwells Remote from multitude. The world's a school Of wrong, and what proficients swarm around! We must or imitate or disapprove;
Must list as their accomplices or foes:
That stains our innocence, this wounds our peace,
From Nature's birth, hence, Wisdom has been smit
With sweet recess, and languish'd for the shade.
This sacred shade and solitude what is it?
'Tis the felt presence of the Deity!
Few are the faults we flatter when alone;
Vice sinks in her allurements, is ungilt,
And looks, like other objects, black by night,
By night an atheist half believes a God!
Night is fair Virtue's immemorial friend.
The conscious Moon, through every distant
Has held a lamp to Wisdom, and let fall,
On Contemplation's eye, her purging ray.
The famed Athenian, he who woo'd from Heaven
Philosophy the fair, to dwell with men,
And form their manners, not inflame their pride:
While o'er his head, as fearful to molest
His labouring mind, the stars in silence slide,
And seem all gazing on their future guest,
See him soliciting his ardent suit
In private audience: all the livelong night,
Rigid in thought, and motionless, he stands;
Nor quits his theme or posture till the Sun
Rude drunkard! rising rosy from the main)
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