Classic Poem

For you, my friend, whose sense, matur'd by years:
Has laid aside vain hopes and idle fears;
Sees pomp and honour in their native light,
Delusive meteors to beguile our sight:
For you, my friend, I write the moral song;
Kind is your soul, your judgment clear and strong.

And you, my friend, can feel another's smart,
A strauger's sorrow touch'd your tender heart.
Oft have I seen the sympathizing tear
(Be such to sacred friendship ever dear):
O may the heav'ns allow a fair reward,
May bright-wing'd seraphs be your constant guard.

Long has your friend on various shores been cast,
Driv'n by each wave the sport of ev'ry blast;
Hope held some splendid pageant to my view,
Still from my reach the bright deception flew;
Round a frail mould'ring column I have hung,
I loiter'd idly, and I idly sung:
But now, adieu to fancy's roseat flow'rs,
To fairy dales, and amaranthine bow'rs;
'Tis time my few ideas to condense,
And leave gay trifles for plain common sense:
Vain is the verse, how smooth soe'er it flows,
The garb of wisdom is majestic prose;
But, if I still must haunt the muses' shade,
Let some sound moral precept be convey'd;
How thro' this sea of storms our course to steer,
And how to sooth our pains and sorrows here.
Life, at the most, is but a summer day,
And we, its insects, basking in the ray.

Fair shone the blushing flow'r, our much-lov'd youth,
His eye was innocence, his smile was truth;
Relentless fate the splendid gift deny'd,
Adonis fell, his parent's hope and pride;
O cease, ye damask roses, cease to blow,
Ye nymphs of Slaney, wear the robes of woe.

How vain, how transient are our early joys,
Mere exhalations, which a breeze destroys!
Armida's garden, or Alcina's isle,
Where roses bloom, and pleasures seem to smile:
We row impatient for the happy shore;
The golden landscape fades, and charms no more;
Youth's blessings vanish from our cheated eye,
Like painted rainbows in a show'ry sky.

Now what are ripen'd manhood's prudent schemes?
More specious reasoning, and more solid dreams;
In fair proportion is the fabric plann'd,
And wisdom seems to guide the forming hand;
But strip the building of its thin disguise,
Gods! what a mass of fraud and folly lies!

Lo one, the friend of arbitrary sway,
Affirms, whole millions must a king obey;
Must bow their necks beneath his iron rod,
And pray to Caesar, as they pray to God.
By tenets base, which but the base can bear,
He heaps up thousands for his worthless heir;
His country's curse attends him to the grave;
His prince, in secret, shall despise the slave.

Another laughs at pomp and fripp'ry things,
He murders statesmen and deposes kings;
He flies from Europe and her polish'd crimes,
To woo rough freedom in the western climes;
The growling tyger, at his voice, shall bend,
O'er vast savannahs shall his rule extend:
At length some Indian takes his desp'rate aim,
Our virtuous Solon falls like common game;
Whence all his toils, whence all the laws he made?
To be himself the despot of the shade.

The bard, whom Phaebus with his heat inspires,
Whose numbers sooth us, and whose fancy fires;
Who paints the hero and th' ensanguin'd plain,
While west-winds fan him thro' a broken pane;
He seems to starve, for everlasting fame,
That sculptur'd marble may record his name;
Of all his labour'd vigils, what the end?
To get a dinner, or procure a friend.

When hoary age has ev'ry limb opprest,
When wisdom wishes for eternal rest;
When pride and pow'r no more their influence hold,
When all is swallow'd in the lust of gold;
The miser counts his beads with ceaseless care,
For one year more to starve his hungry heir;
For one year more to see his forests rise
(Ill-fated forests when Avaro dies,
Before the ruthless axe the oak must bend,
The lofty pines shall from their hills descend):
Heav'n-ward his pray'rs and wishes seem inclin'd,
But still to Mammon bends his earthly mind.

From youth to manhood, and from thence to age,
While man remains upon this busy stage,
Self-love directs us, all the wife men say,
So Pope has told us in his golden lay;
Self-love's the principle our steps to guide,
It makes us humble, or it gives us pride;
Self-love has made the sainted martyr shine,
Makes Bibo drunken, makes Narcissa fine;
Self-love's the principle we all conceal,
Yet every action does its strength reveal.

What gen'ral maxim shall we now deduce,
Of solid value, and of sterling use?
Since life is masquerade, and all's disguise,
Trust not too much — to doubt is to be wise.

When fame, when fortune vanish from my view,
When all my velvet friends shall bid adieu;
When the blood chills, when ev'ry pulse shall die,
And misty shadows swim before my eye;
What ray of comfort then shall gild my breast?
What hope shall lull my beating soul to rest?
No honour broken, and no trust betray'd,
No injur'd orphan, no deluded maid;
If sometimes driv'n by passion's tide along,
The end still virtuous, tho' the means were wrong.