Part III

Still on the warrior band I fix'd my view,But now a different troop my notice drew:The sage Palladian tribe, a nobler train,Whose toils deserve a more exalted strain.Plato majestic in the front appear'd,Where wisdom's sacred hand her ensign rear'd.Celestial blazonry! by heaven bestow'd,Which, waving high, before the vaward glow'd:Then came the Stagyrite, whose mental rayPierced through all nature like the shafts of day;And he that, by the unambitious name,Lover of wisdom, chose to bound his fame.Then Socrates and Xenophon were seen;With them a bard of more than earthly mien,Whom every muse of Jove's immortal choirBless'd with a portion of celestial fire:From ancient Argos to the Phrygian boundHis never-dying strains were borne aroundOn inspiration's wing, and hill and daleEchoed the notes of Ilion's mournful tale.The woes of Thetis, and Ulysses' toils,His mighty mind recover'd from the spoilsOf envious time, and placed in lasting lightThe trophies ransom'd from oblivion's nightThe Mantuan bard, responsive to his song,Co-rival of his glory, walk'd along.The next with new surprise my notice drew,Where'er he pass'd spontaneous flowerets grew,Fit emblems of his style; and close behindThe great Athenian at his lot repined;Which doom'd him, like a secondary star,To yield precedence in the wordy war;Though like the bolts of Jove that shake the spheres,He lighten'd in their eyes, and thunder'd in their ears.The assembly felt the shock, the immortal sound,His Attic rival's fainter accents drown'd.But now so many candidates for fameIn countless crowds and gay confusion came,That Memory seem'd her province to resign,Perplex'd and lost amid the lengthen'd line.Yet Solon there I spied, for laws renown'd,Salubrious plants in clean and cultured ground;But noxious, if malignant hands infuseIn their transmuted stems a baneful juiceAmongst the Romans, Varro next I spied,The light of linguists, and our country's pride;Still nearer as he moved, the eye could traceA new attraction and a nameless grace.Livy I saw, with dark invidious frownListening with pain to Sallust's loud renown;And Pliny there, profuse of life I found,Whom love of knowledge to the burning boundLed unawares; and there Plotinus' shade,Who dark Platonic truths in fuller light display'd:He, flying far to 'scape the coming pest,Was, when he seem'd secure, by death oppressed;That, fix'd by fate, before he saw the sun,The careful sophist strove in vain to shun.Hortensius, Crassus, Galba, next appear'd,Calvus and Antony, by Rome revered,The first with Pollio join'd, whose tongue profaneAssail'd the fame of Cicero in vain.Thucydides, who mark'd distinct and clearThe tardy round of many a bloody year,And, with a master's graphic skill, pourtray'dThe fields, "whose summer dust with blood was laid;"And near Herodotus his ninefold roll display'd,Father of history; and Euclid's vestThe heaven-taught symbols of that art express'dThat measures matter, form, and empty space,And calculates the planets' heavenly race;And Porphyry, whose proud obdurate heartWas proof to mighty Truth's celestial dart;With sophistry assail'd the cause of God,And stood in arms against the heavenly code.Hippocrates, for healing arts renown'd,And half obscured within the dark profound;The pair, whom ignorance in ancient daysAdorn'd like deities, with borrow'd rays.Galen was near, of Pergamus the boast,Whose skill retrieved the art so nearly lost.Then Anaxarchus came, who conquer'd pain;And he, whom pleasures strove to lure in vainFrom duty's path. And first in mournful moodThe mighty soul of Archimedes stood;And sage Democritus I there beheld,Whose daring hand the light of vision quell'd,To shun the soul-seducing forms, that playOn the rapt fancy in the beam of day:The gifts of fortune, too, he flung aside,By wisdom's wealth, a nobler store, supplied.There Hippias, too, I saw, who dared to claimFor general science an unequall'd name.And him, whose doubtful mind and roving eyeNo certainty in truth itself could spy;With him who in a deep mysterious guiseHer heavenly charms conceal'd from vulgar eyes.The frontless cynic next in rank I saw,Sworn foe to decency and nature's modest law.With him the sage, that mark'd, with dark disdain,His wealth consumed by rapine's lawless train;And glad that nothing now remain'd behind,To foster envy in a rival's mind,That treasure bought, which nothing can destroy,"The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy."Then curious Dicaearchus met my view,Who studied nature with sagacious view.Quintilian next, and Seneca were seen,And Chaeronea's sage, of placid mien;All various in their taste and studious toils,But each adorn'd with Learning's splendid spoils.There, too, I saw, in universal jar,The tribes that spend their time in wordy war;And o'er the vast interminable deepOf knowledge, like conflicting tempests, sweep.For truth they never toil, but feed their prideWith fuel by eternal strife supplied:No dragon of the wild with equal rage,Nor lions in nocturnal war, engageWith hate so deadly, as the learn'd and wise,Who scan their own desert with partial eyes.Carneades, renown'd for logic skill,Who right or wrong, and true and false, at willCould turn and change, employ'd his fruitless painTo reconcile the fierce, contending train:But, ever as he toil'd, the raging pestOf pride, as knowledge grew, with equal speed increased.Then Epicurus, of sinister fame,Rebellious to the lord of nature, came;Who studied to deprive the soaring soulOf her bright world of hope beyond the pole;A mole-ey'd race their hapless guide pursued,And blindly still the vain assault renew'd.Dark Metrodorus next sustain'd the cause,With Aristippus, true to Pleasure's laws.Chrysippus next his subtle web disposed:Zeno alternate spread his hand, and closed;To show how eloquence expands the soul,And logic boasts a close and nervous whole.And there Cleanthes drew the mighty lineThat led his pupils on, with heart divine,Through time's fallacious joys, by Virtue's road,To the bright palace of the sovereign good.--But here the weary Muse forsakes the throng,Too numerous for the bounds of mortal song.

Behind Aurora's wheels the rising sunHis voyage from his golden shrine begun,With such ethereal speed, as if the HoursHad caught him slumb'ring in her rosy bowers.With lordly eye, that reach'd the world's extreme,Methought he look'd, when, gliding on his beam,That winged power approach'd that wheels his carIn its wide annual range from star to star,Measuring vicissitude; till, now more near,Methought these thrilling accents met my ear:--"New laws must be observed if mortals claim,Spite of the lapse of time, eternal fame.Those laws have lost their force that Heaven decreed,And I my circle run with fruitless speed;If fame's loud breath the slumb'ring dust inspire,And bid to live with never-dying fire,My power, that measures mortal things, is cross'd,And my long glories in oblivion lost.If mortals on yon planet's shadowy face,Can match the tenor of my heavenly race,I strive with fruitless speed from year to yearTo keep precedence o'er a lower sphere.In vain yon flaming coursers I prepare,In vain the watery world and ambient airTheir vigour feeds, if thus, with angels' flightA mortal can o'ertake the race of light!Were you a lesser planet, doom'd to runA shorter journey round a nobler sun;Ranging among yon dusky orbs below,A more degrading doom I could not know:Now spread your swiftest wings, my steeds of flame,We must not yield to man's ambitious aim.With emulation's noblest fires I glow,And soon that reptile race that boast belowBright Fame's conducting lamp, that seems to vieWith my incessant journeys round the sky,And gains, or seems to gain, increasing light,Yet shall its glories sink in gradual night.But I am still the same; my course beganBefore that dusky orb, the seat of man,Was built in ambient air: with constant swayI lead the grateful change of night and day,To one ethereal track for ever bound,And ever treading one eternal round."--And now, methought, with more than mortal ire,He seem'd to lash along his steeds of fire;And shot along the air with glancing ray,Swift as a falcon darting on its prey;No planet's swift career could match his speed,That seem'd the power of fancy to exceed.The courier of the sky I mark'd with dread,As by degrees the baseless fabric fledThat human power had built, while high disdainI felt within to see the toiling trainStriving to seize each transitory thingThat fleets away on dissolution's wing;And soonest from the firmest grasp recede,Like airy forms, with tantalizing speed.O mortals! ere the vital powers decay,Or palsied eld obscures the mental ray,Raise your affections to the things above,Which time or fickle chance can never move.Had you but seen what I despair to sing,How fast his courser plied the flaming wingWith unremitted speed, the soaring mindHad left his low terrestrial cares behind.But what an awful change of earth and skyAll in a moment pass'd before my eye!Now rigid winter stretch'd her brumal reignWith frown Gorgonean over land and main;And Flora now her gaudy mantle spread,And many a blushing rose adorn'd her bed:The momentary seasons seem'd to fleetFrom bright solstitial dews to winter's driving sleet.In circle multiform, and swift career:A wondrous tale, untold to mortal earBefore: yet reason's calm unbiass'd viewMust soon pronounce the seeming fable true,When deep remorse for many a wasted springStill haunts the frighted soul on demon wing.Fond hope allured me on with meteor flight,And Love my fancy fed with vain delight,Chasing through fairy fields her pageants gay.But now, at last, a clear and steady ray,From reason's mirror sent, my folly shows,And on my sight the hideous image throwsOf what I am--a mind eclipsed and lost,By vice degraded from its noble postBut yet, e'en yet, the mind's elastic springBuoys up my powers on resolution's wing,While on the flight of time, with rueful gazeIntent, I try to thread the backward maze,And husband what remains, a scanty space.Few fleeting hours, alas! have pass'd away,Since a weak infant in the lap I lay;For what is human life but one uncertain day!Now hid by flying vapours, dark and cold,And brighten'd now with gleams of sunny gold,That mock the gazer's eye with gaudy show,And leave the victim to substantial woe:Yet hope can live beneath the stormy sky,And empty pleasures have their pinions ply;And frantic pride exalts the lofty brow,Nor marks the snares of death that lurk below.Uncertain, whether now the shaft of fateSings on the wind, or heaven prolongs my date.I see my hours run on with cruel speed,And in my doom the fate of all I read;A certain doom, which nature's self must feelWhen the dread sentence checks the mundane wheel.Go! court the smiles of Hope, ye thoughtless crew!Her fairy scenes disclose an ample viewTo brainless men. But Wisdom o'er the fieldCasts her keen glance, and lifts her beamy shieldTo meet the point of Fate, that flies afar,And with stern vigilance expects the war.Perhaps in vain my admonitions fall,Yet still the Muse repeats the solemn call;Nor can she see unmoved your senses drown'dBy Circe's deadly spells in sleep profound.She cannot see the flying seasons rollIn dread succession to the final goal,And sweep the tribes of men so fast away,To Stygian darkness or eternal day,With unconcern.--Oh! yet the doom repealBefore your callous hearts forget to feel;E'er Penitence foregoes her fruitless toil,Or hell's black regent claims his human spoilOh, haste! before the fatal arrows flyThat send you headlong to the nether skyWhen down the gulf the sons of folly goIn sad procession to the seat of woe!Thus deeply musing on the rapid roundOf planetary speed, in thought profoundI stood, and long bewail'd my wasted hours,My vain afflictions, and my squander'd powers:When, in deliberate march, a train was seenIn silent order moving o'er the green;A band that seem'd to hold in high disdainThe desolating power of Time's resistless reign:Their names were hallow'd in the Muse's song,Wafted by fame from age to age along,High o'er oblivion's deep, devouring wave,Where millions find an unrefunding grave.With envious glance the changeful power beheldThe glorious phalanx which his power repell'd,And faster now the fiery chariot flew,While Fame appear'd the rapid flight to rue,And labour'd some to save. But, close behind,I heard a voice, which, like the western wind,That whispers softly through the summer shade,These solemn accents to mine ear convey'd:--"Man is a falling flower; and Fame in vainStrives to protract his momentaneous reignBeyond his bounds, to match the rolling tide,On whose dread waves the long olympiads ride,Till, fed by time, the deep procession grows,And in long centuries continuous flows;For what the power of ages can oppose?Though Tempe's rolling flood, or Hebrus claimRenown, they soon shall live an empty name.Where are their heroes now, and those who ledThe files of war by Xanthus' gory bed?Or Tuscan Tyber's more illustrious band,Whose conquering eagles flew o'er sea and land?What is renown?--a gleam of transient light,That soon an envious cloud involves in night,While passing Time's malignant hands diffuseOn many a noble name pernicious dews.Thus our terrestrial glories fade away,Our triumphs pass the pageants of a day;Our fields exchange their lords, our kingdoms fall,And thrones are wrapt in Hades' funeral pallYet virtue seldom gains what vice had lost,And oft the hopes of good desert are cross'd.Not wealth alone, but mental stores decay,And, like the gifts of Mammon, pass away;Nor wisdom, wealth, nor fortune can withstandHis desolating march by sea and land;Nor prayers, nor regal power his wheels restrain,Till he has ground us down to dust again.Though various are the titles men can plead,Some for a time enjoy the glorious meedThat merit claims; yet unrelenting fateOn all the doom pronounces soon or late;And whatsoe'er the vulgar think or say,Were not your lives thus shorten'd to a day,Your eyes would see the consummating powerHis countless millions at a meal devour."And reason's voice my stubborn mind subdued;Conviction soon the solemn words pursued;I saw all mortal glory pass away,Like vernal snows beneath the rising ray;And wealth, and power, and honour, strive in vainTo 'scape the laws of Time's despotic reign.Though still to vulgar eyes they seem to claimA lot conspicuous in the lists of Fame,Transient as human joys; to feeble ageThey love to linger on this earthly stage,And think it cruel to be call'd awayOn the faint morn of life's disastrous day.Yet ah! how many infants on the breastBy Heaven's indulgence sink to endless rest!And oft decrepid age his lot bewails,Whom every ill of lengthen'd life assails.Hence sick despondence thinks the human lotA gift of fleeting breath too dearly bought:But should the voice of Fame's obstreperous blastFrom ages on to future ages last,E'en to the trump of doom,--how poor the prizeWhose worth depends upon the changing skies!What time bestows and claims (the fleeting breathOf Fame) is but, at best, a second death--A death that none of mortal race can shun,That wastes the brood of time, and triumphs o'er the sun.

When all beneath the ample cope of heavenI saw, like clouds before the tempest driven,In sad vicissitude's eternal round,Awhile I stood in holy horror bound;And thus at last with self-exploring mind,Musing, I ask'd, "What basis I could findTo fix my trust?" An inward voice replied,"Trust to the Almighty: He thy steps shall guide;He never fails to hear the faithful prayer,But worldly hope must end in dark despair."Now, what I am, and what I was, I know;I see the seasons in procession goWith still increasing speed; while things to come,Unknown, unthought, amid the growing gloomOf long futurity, perplex my soul,While life is posting to its final goal.Mine is the crime, who ought with clearer lightTo watch the winged years' incessant flight;And not to slumber on in dull delayTill circling seasons bring the doomful day.But grace is never slow in that, I trust,To wake the mind, before I sink to dust,With those strong energies that lift the soulTo scenes unhoped, unthought, above the pole.While thus I ponder'd, soon my working thoughtOnce more that ever-changing picture broughtOf sublunary things before my view,And thus I question'd with myself anew:--"What is the end of this incessant flightOf life and death, alternate day and night?When will the motion on these orbs impress'dSink on the bosom of eternal rest?"At once, as if obsequious to my will,Another prospect shone, unmoved and still;Eternal as the heavens that glow'd above,A wide resplendent scene of light and love.The wheels of Phoebus from the zodiac turn'd;No more the nightly constellations burn'd;Green earth and undulating ocean roll'dAway, by some resistless power controll'd;Immensity conceived, and brought to birthA grander firmament, and more luxuriant earth.What wonder seized my soul when first I view'dHow motionless the restless racer stood,Whose flying feet, with winged speed before,Still mark'd with sad mutation sea and shore.No more he sway'd the future and the past,But on the moveless present fix'd at last;As at a goal reposing from his toils,Like earth unclothed of all its vernal foils.Unvaried scene! where neither change nor fate,Nor care, nor sorrow, can our joys abate;Nor finds the light of thought resistance here,More than the sunbeams in a crystal sphere.But no material things can match their flight,In speed excelling far the race of light.Oh! what a glorious lot shall then be mineIf Heaven to me these nameless joys assign!For there the sovereign good for ever reigns,Nor evil yet to come, nor present pains;No baleful birth of time its inmates fear,That comes, the burthen of the passing year;No solar chariot circles through the signs,And now too near, and now too distant, shines;To wretched man and earth's devoted soilDispensing sad variety of toil.Oh! happy are the blessed souls that singLoud hallelujahs in eternal ring!Thrice happy he, who late, at last shall findA lot in the celestial climes assign'd!He, led by grace, the auspicious ford explores,Where, cross the plains, the wintry torrent roars;That troublous tide, where, with incessant strife,Weak mortals struggle through, and call it life.In love with Vanity, oh, doubly blindAre they that final consolation findIn things that fleet on dissolution's wing,Or dance away upon the transient ringOf seasons, as they roll. No sound they hearFrom that still voice that Wisdom's sons revere;No vestment they procure to keep them warmAgainst the menace of the wintry storm;But all exposed, in naked nature lie,A shivering crowd beneath the inclement sky,Of reason void, by every foe subdued,Self-ruin'd, self-deprived of sovereign good;Reckless of Him, whose universal sway,Matter, and all its various forms, obey;Whether they mix in elemental strife,Or meet in married calm, and foster life.His nature baffles all created mind,In earth or heaven, to fathom, or to find.One glimpse of glory on the saints bestow'd,With eager longings fills the courts of GodFor deeper views, in that abyss of light,While mortals slumber here, content with night:Though nought, we find, below the moon, can fillThe boundless cravings of the human will.And yet, what fierce desire the fancy wingsTo gain a grasp of perishable things;Although one fleeting hour may scatter farThe fruit of many a year's corroding care;Those spacious regions where our fancies roam,Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come,In some dread moment, by the fates assign'd,Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind;And Time's revolving wheels shall lose at lastThe speed that spins the future and the past;And, sovereign of an undisputed throne,Awful eternity shall reign alone.Then every darksome veil shall fleet awayThat hides the prospects of eternal day:Those cloud-born objects of our hopes and fears,Whose air-drawn forms deluded memory bearsAs of substantial things, away so fastShall fleet, that mortals, at their speed aghast,Watching the change of all beneath the moon,Shall ask, what once they were, and will be soon?The time will come when every change shall cease,This quick revolving wheel shall rest in peace:No summer then shall glow, nor winter freeze;Nothing shall be to come, and nothing past,But an eternal now shall ever last.Though time shall be no more, yet space shall giveA nobler theatre to love and liveThe winged courier then no more shall claimThe power to sink or raise the notes of Fame,Or give its glories to the noontide ray:True merit then, in everlasting day,Shall shine for ever, as at first it shoneAt once to God and man and angels known.Happy are they who in this changing sphereAlready have begun the bright careerThat reaches to the goal which, all in vain,The Muse would blazon in her feeble strain:But blest above all other blest is heWho from the trammels of mortality,Ere half the vital thread ran out, was free,Mature for Heaven; where now the matchless fairPreserves those features, that seraphic air,And all those mental charms that raised my mind,To judge of heaven while yet on earth confined.That soft attractive glance that won my heartWhen first my bosom felt unusual smart,Now beams, now glories, in the realms above,Fed by the eternal source of light and love.Then shall I see her as I first beheld,But lovelier far, and by herself excell'd;And I distinguish'd in the bands aboveShall hear this plaudit in the choirs of love:--"Lo! this is he who sung in mournful strainsFor many years a lover's doubts and pains;Yet in this soul-expanding, sweet employ,A sacred transport felt above all vulgar joy."She too shall wonder at herself to hearHer praises ring around the radiant sphere:But of that hour it is not mine to know;To her, perhaps, the period of my woeIs manifest; for she my fate may findIn the pure mirror of the eternal mind.To me it seems at hand a sure presage,Denotes my rise from this terrestrial stage;Then what I gain'd and lost below shall lieSuspended in the balance of the sky,And all our anxious sublunary caresShall seem one tissue of Arachne's snares;And all the lying vanities of life,The sordid source of envy, hate, and strife,Ignoble as they are, shall then appearBefore the searching beam of truth severe;Then souls, from sense refined, shall see the fraudThat led them from the living way of God.From the dark dungeon of the human breastAll direful secrets then shall rise confess'd,In honour multiplied--a dreadful showTo hierarchies above, and saints below.Eternal reason then shall give her doom;And, sever'd wide, the tenants of the tombShall seek their portions with instinctive haste,Quick as the savage speeds along the waste.Then shall the golden hoard its trust betray,And they, that, mindless of that dreadful day,Boasted their wealth, its vanity shall knowIn the dread avenue of endless woe:While they whom moderation's wholesome ruleKept still unstain'd in Virtue's heavenly school,Who the calm sunshine of the soul beneathEnjoy'd, will share the triumph of the Faith.

These pageants five the world and I beheld,The sixth and last, I hope, in heaven reveal'd(If Heaven so will), when Time with speedy handThe scene despoils, and Death's funereal wandThe triumph leads. But soon they both shall fallUnder that mighty hand that governs all,While they who toil for true renown below,Whom envious Time and Death, a mightier foe,Relentless plunged in dark oblivion's womb,When virtue seem'd to seek the silent tomb,Spoil'd of her heavenly charms once more shall rise,Regain their beauty, and assert the skies;Leaving the dark sojourn of time beneath,And the wide desolated realms of Death.But she will early seek these glorious bounds,Whose long-lamented fall the world resoundsIn unison with me. And heaven will viewThat awful day her heavenly charms renew,When soul with body joins. Gebenna's strandSaw me enroll'd in Love's devoted band,And mark'd my toils through many hard campaignsAnd wounds, whose scars my memory yet retains.Blest is the pile that marks the hallow'd dust!--There, at the resurrection of the just,When the last trumpet with earth-shaking soundShall wake her sleepers from their couch profound;Then, when that spotless and immortal mindIn a material mould once more enshrined,With wonted charms shall wake seraphic love,How will the beatific sight improveHer heavenly beauties in the climes above!

Happy those souls who now are on their way,Or shall hereafter, to attain that end,Theme of my argument, come when it will;And, 'midst the other fair, and fraught with grace,Most happy she whom Death has snatch'd away,On this side far the natural bound of life.The angel manners then will clearly shine,The meet and pure discourse, the chasten'd thought,Which nature planted in her youthful breast.Unnumber'd beauties, worn by time and death,Shall then return to their best state of bloom;And how thou hast bound me, love, will then be seen,Whence I by every finger shall be shown!--Behold who ever wept, and in his tearsWas happier far than others in their smiles!And she, of whom I yet lamenting sing,Shall wonder at her own transcendant charms,Seeing herself far above all admired.

Here peaceful sleeps the chaste, the happy shadeOf that pure spirit, which adorn'd this earth:Pure fame, true beauty, and transcendent worth,Rude stone! beneath thy rugged breast are laid.Death sudden snatch'd the dear lamented maid!Who first to all my tender woes gave birth,Woes! that estranged my sorrowing soul to mirth,While full four lustres time completely made.Sweet plant! that nursed on Avignon's sweet soil,There bloom'd, there died; when soon the weeping MuseThrew by the lute, forsook her wonted toil.Bright spark of beauty, that still fires my breast!What pitying mortal shall a prayer refuse,That Heaven may number thee amid the blest?

Here rest the chaste, the dear, the blest remainsOf her most lovely; peerless while on earth:What late was beauty, spotless honour, worth,Stern marble, here thy chill embrace retains.The freshness of the laurel Death disdains;And hath its root thus wither'd.--Such the dearthO'ertakes me. Here I bury ease and mirth,And hope from twenty years of cares and pains.This happy plant Avignon lonely fedWith Life, and saw it die.--And with it liesMy pen, my verse, my reason;--useless, dead.O graceful form!--Fire, which consuming fliesThrough all my frame!--For blessings on thy headOh, may continual prayers to heaven rise!

Here now repose those chaste, those blest remainsOf that most gentle spirit, sole in earth!Harsh monumental stone, that here confinestTrue honour, fame, and beauty, all o'erthrown!Death has destroy'd that Laurel green, and tornIts tender roots; and all the noble meedOf my long warfare, passing (if arightMy melancholy reckoning holds) four lustres.O happy plant! Avignon's favour'd soilHas seen thee spring and die;--and here with theeThy poet's pen, and muse, and genius lies.O lovely, beauteous limbs! O vivid fire,That even in death hast power to melt the soul!Heaven be thy portion, peace with God on high!