LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.
ARTHUR ONSLOW, Efq;
SPEAKER of the House of Commons.
As the occasion of this Poem was real, not fictitious;: so the method pursued in it was rather impofed, by what spontaneously arose in the author's mind on that occafion, than meditated or designed. Which will appear very probably from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of Poetry, which is from long narrations to draw short morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is short, and the morality arising from it makes the bulk of the Poem. The reaSon of it is, That the falts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the wrie
On LIFE, DEATH, and IMMORTALITY.
IR'D Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where Fortune smiles: the wretched he for
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unfully'd with a tear.
From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose, I wake: how happy they who wake no more! Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave. I wake, emerging from a fea of dreams Tumultuous; where my wreck'd, desponding thought, From wave to wave of fancy'd mifery, At random drove, her helm of reason loft; Though now refior'd, 'tis only change of pain, (A bitter change!) feverer for severe : The Day too short for my distress! and Night, Even in the Zenith of her dark domain, Is funshine to the colour of my fate.
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In ra rayless majesty, ty, now stretches forth Her leaden scepter o'er a flumb'ring world. Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor lift'ning ear an object finds: Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end. And let her prophecy be foon fulfill'd; Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more. Silence, and Darkness! folemn sisters! twin From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thou ht
To Reafon, 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
Primæval Silence, when the morning-stars
Exulting, shouted o'er the rifing ball;
O THO U! whose word from solid Darkness struck
That spark, the fun; strike wisdom from my foul;
My foul which flies to thee, her truft, her treafure,
As mifers to their gold, while others reft.
Through this opaque of nature, and of foul,
This double night, tranfmit one pitying ray,
To lighten, and to chear. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander froin its woe),
Lead it through various scenes of life and death;
And from each scene the noblest truths infpire.
Nor less inspire my conduct, than my fong;
Teach my best reason, reason; my best will,
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve
Wifdom to wed, and pay her long arrear.
Nor let the vial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.
The bell strikes One. We take no note of time,
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue,
Is wife in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the folemn found. If heard aright,
It is the kuell of my departed hours.
Where are they? with the years beyond the flood,
It is the fignal that demands dispatch;
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 abyis;
A dread eternity! how furely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor penfioner on the bounties of an hour?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man?
Ho pafling wonder HE, who made him such,
Who center'd in our make fuch strange extremes?
From different natures, marvellously mixt,
*Connection exquisite of diftant worlds!
'Diftinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam etherial, fully'd and absorbt!
Though fully'd and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of duft!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm! a god! I tremble at myself,
And in myself am loft! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surpriz'd, aghaft,
And wond'ring at her own: how reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man,
Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported, and alarm'd!
What can preserve my life? or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.
'Tis paft conjecture; all things rife in proof:
While o'er my limbs Sleep's foft dominion's spread,
What tho my foul phantaftic measures trod
O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom
Of pathless woods; or, down the craggy steep
Hurl'd headlong, fwam with pain the mantled pool;
Or fcal'd the cliff; or danc'd on hollow winds,
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?
Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature
Of fubtler effence than the trodden clod;
Active, aëreal, towering, unconfin'd,
Unfetter'd with her grots companion's fall.
Ev'n filent night proclaims my foul immortal:
Ev'n filent night proclaims eternal day.
For human weal heav'n husbands all events,
Dull fleep instructs, nor fport vain dreams in vain.
y then their lofs deplore, that are not loft?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,
In infidel distrefs? Are angels there?
Slumbers, rak'd up in duft, ethereal fire?
They live! they greatly live a life on earth
Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an eye
Of tenderness, let heav'nly pity fall
|