Blessed by the miracle of being gay chesserfield

In which are considered, the love of this life; the ambition and pleasure, with the wit and wisdom, of the world. A nd has all Nature, then, espoused my part? Have I bribed Heaven and Earth to plead against thee? And is thy soul immortal? All, all, Lorenzo!

And yet Lorenzo still affects the world; There, stows his treasure; thence, his title draws, Man of the world! And art thou proud of that inglorious style? Sprinkled with dews from the Castalian font, 15 Fain would I re-baptize thee, and confer A purer spirit, and a nobler name.

Thy fond attachments, fatal and inflamed, Point out my path, and dictate to my song: To thee the World how fair! Thy triple bane!

A Lady of the Last Century

Be these my triple theme; Nor shall thy wit or wisdom be forgot. Common the theme; not so the song; if she 25 My song invokes, Uraniadeigns to smile. The charm that chains us to the World, her foe, If she dissolves, the man of earth, at once, Starts from his trance, and sighs for other scenes; Scenes, where these sparks of night, these stars, shall shine 30 Unnumber'd suns; for all things as they are The bless'd behold; and, in one glory, pour Their blended blaze on man's astonish'd sight; A blaze,—the least illustrious object there.

O Lorenzo! On human hearts He bends a jealous eye, And marks, and in Heaven's register enrols, The rise and progress of each option there; 50 Sacred to doomsday! That the page unfolds, And spreads us to the gaze of gods and men. And what an option, O Lorenzothine! This world!

A world, where Lust of Pleasure, Grandeur, Gold, 55 Three demons that divide its realms between them, With strokes alternate buffet to and fro Man's restless heart, their sport, their flying ball; Till with the giddy circle sick and tired, It pants for peace, and drops into despair.

How frail men, things! Fantastic chase, of shadows hunting shades! The gay, the busy, equal, though unlike; 75 Equal in wisdom, differently wise! Through flowery meadows, and through dreary wastes, One bustling, and one dancing, into death. There's not a blessed by the miracle of being gay chesserfield but, to the man of thought, Betrays some secret, that throws new reproach 80 On life, and makes him sick of seeing more.

Amid disgust eternal, dwells delight? What wondrous prize has kindled this career, Stuns with the din, and chokes us with the dust, On Life's gay stage, one inch above the grave? The proud run up and down in quest of eyes; 90 The sensual, in pursuit of something worse; The grave, of gold; the politic, of power; And all, of other butterflies, as vain!

As eddies draw things frivolous and light, How is man's heart by vanity drawn in; 95 On the swift circle of returning toys, Whirl'd, straw-like, round and round, and then ingulf'd, Where gay delusion darkens to despair! Never beat enough, Till enough learn'd the truths it would inspire.

Shall Truth be silent because Folly frowns? Turn the world's history; what find we there, But Fortune's sports, or Nature's cruel claims, Or woman's artifice, or man's revenge, And endless inhumanities on man? Fame's trumpet seldom sounds but, like the knell, It brings bad tidings!

How it hourly blows Man's misadventures round the listening world! Man is the tale of narrative Old Time; Sad tale!