Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

thread. As a biographer has remarked- "There is a want of a clear connexion in the subject; every image is amplified to the utmost; every argument expanded and varied, as much as the greatest fertility of the fancy could effect. . . . There is no selection, no discreet and graceful reservation; no mark of that experienced taste that knows exactly when the purpose has been effected, and which leaves the rest to be supplied by the imagination of the reader. Reflection follows on reflection, and thought on thought, in such close succession, that, as in books of maxims, one truth obstructs and obliterates another;

and we feel, I am afraid, in reading this poem of Young, as we do in the perusal of Seneca, that no progress, no advancement is made; we seem to move in a perpetually dazzling circle of argument, and reflection, and analogy, and metaphor, and illustration, without the power of passing beyond it; and it is on this account that the perusal of both these writers, however delightful for a season, soon fatigues and dissatisfies the mind. Any one who will compare the moral writings of Cicero and Seneca in this respect, will soon mark the distinction to which I allude.'

[ocr errors]

At the same time, such are the aphoristic force and the felicitous wording of many separate sentences, that they have almost passed into proverbs, and it would be difficult to name any author whose sayings so constantly recur to the preacher and moralist. As he turns over the pages, the reader will ever and anon recognise "household words" like the following:

"The first sure symptom of a mind in health
Is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home."

"Like our shadows,

Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines."

"Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die."

"The world's a prophecy of worlds to come."

*Rev. John Mitford's "Life of Young," Pickering's edition, p. 38.

---

YOUNG.

"A Christian dwells, like Uriel, in the sun."

"Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,

To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."

"How wretched is the man who never mourn'd!"

The True Land of the Living.

Why then their loss deplore, that are not lost?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,
In infidel distress?

They live! they greatly live a life on earth
Unkindled, unconceived; and from an eye
Of tenderness, let heavenly pity fall
On me, more justly number'd with the dead.
This is the desert, this the solitude:
How populous, how vital, is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,
The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty shades!
All, all on earth, is shadow, all beyond
Is substance; the reverse is folly's creed:
How solid all, where change shall be no more?
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,
The twilight of our day, the vestibule;
Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death,
Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar,
This gross impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryos of existence free.

Embryos we must be, till we burst the shell,
Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life,
The life of gods, O transport! and of man.

The Awful Certainty.

Tell me, some god! my guardian angel! tell,
What thus infatuates? what enchantment plants
The phantom of an age 'twixt us, and death
Already at the door? He knocks, we hear him,

369

And yet we will not hear. What mail defends
Our untouch'd hearts? What miracle turns off
The pointed thought, which from a thousand quivers
Is daily darted, and is daily shunn'd?

We stand as in a battle, throngs on throngs
Around us falling; wounded oft ourselves;
Though bleeding with our wounds, immortal still!
We see time's furrows on another's brow,
And death entrench'd, preparing his assault;
How few themselves, in that just mirror, see!
Or, seeing, draw their inference as strong!
There death is certain; doubtful here: He must,

And soon; We may, within an age, expire.

Though gray our heads, our thoughts and aims are green ;
Like damaged clocks, whose hand and bell dissent;
Folly sings Six, while Nature points at Twelve.

Must I then forward only look for death?
Backward I turn mine eye, and find him there.
Man is a self-survivor every year.

Man, like a stream, is in perpetual flow.
Death's a destroyer of quotidian prey.

My youth, my noontide, his; my yesterday;
The bold invader shares the present hour.
Each moment on the former shuts the grave.
While man is growing, life is in decrease;
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun;
As tapers waste, that instant they take fire.

Dying Friends.

Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud,
To damp our brainless ardours; and abate
That glare of life which often blinds the wise:
Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth
Our rugged pass to death; to break those bars
Of terror and abhorrence Nature throws
'Cross our obstructed way; and thus to make
Welcome, as safe, our port from every storm.
Each friend by fate snatch'd from us, is a plume

YOUNG.

Pluck'd from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us stoop from our aërial heights,
And, damp'd with omen of our own decease,
On drooping pinions of ambition lower'd,
Just skim earth's surface, ere we break it up,
O'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust,
And save the world a nuisance. Smitten friends
Are angels sent on errands full of love;
For us they languish, and for us they die :
And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain?
Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hovering shades,
Which wait the revolution in our hearts?
Shall we disdain their silent, soft address;
Their posthumous advice, and pious prayer?
Senseless, as herds that graze their hallow'd graves,
Tread under foot their agonies and groans;
Frustrate their anguish, and destroy their deaths?

The bell strikes one.

But from its loss.

Is wise in man.

Time.

We take no note of time
To give it then a tongue

As if an angel spoke,

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!
A dread eternity! how surely mine!

And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

Piety.

On Piety humanity is built;

And on humanity, much happiness;

And yet still more on piety itself.

A soul in commerce with her God, is heav

371

Feels not the tumults and the shocks of life;

The whirls of passions, and the strokes of heart. A Deity believed, is joy begun;

A Deity adored, is joy advanced;

A Deity beloved, is joy matured.

Each branch of piety delight inspires;

Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next,
O'er death's dark gulf, and all its horror hides;
Praise, the sweet exhalation of our joy,
That joy exalts, and makes it sweeter still;
Prayer ardent opens heaven, lets down a stream
Of glory on the consecrated hour

Of man, in audience with the Deity.

Who worships the Great God, that instant joins The first in heaven, and sets his foot on hell.

The Good Man.

Some angel guide my pencil, while I draw,
What nothing less than angel can exceed!
A man on earth devoted to the skies;
Like ships on seas, while in, above the world.
With aspect mild, and elevated eye,
Behold him seated on a mount serene,
Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm;
All the black cares and tumults of this life,
Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet,
Excite his pity, not impair his peace.

Earth's genuine sons, the sceptred and the slave,
A mingled mob! a wandering herd! he sees,
Bewilder'd in the vale: or all unlike!
His full reverse in all! What higher praise?
What stronger demonstration of the right?
The present all their care; the future his.
When public welfare calls, or private want,
They give to fame; his bounty he conceals;
Their virtues varnish nature, his exalt;
Mankind's esteem they court, and he his own;
Theirs the wild chase of false felicities,
His the composed possession of the true.

« ÖncekiDevam »