Classic Poem

IV.

Be quick, be quick, we cannot live too fast,
This pleasing Rapture cannot last,
An Age already's idly past!
Lo! rapid Hours roll round apace,
Now, now, unseen they swiftly steal the race;
'Tis past, 'tis past, — and now I see
The ghastly Head of bald Eternity!
Grim Death brings up the Rear,
In all the frightful Forms that Mortals fear:
Now must we leave this transitory Stage,
And mourn in vain an ill-spent Age!
Our sweet Delights, our smiling Hours,
Mossy Mountains,
Murmuring Fountains,
Shady Grottoes, rosy Bowers,
Alas no more are ours!
Of all our large Possessions Fate will but allow,
At most a mournful Cypress Bough.
Perhaps your Heir
Will shed a counterfeiting Tear,
A Tear but for the sake of your Estate,
Which he must, with himself, too soon resign to Fate.

V.

Our Fates are mingled in one common Urn,
Which soon or late must take their turn:
The Great, the Poor, the Low, the High,
Confus'dly blended lie;
The Weak, the Strong, the Base, the Brave,
Which here so different seem, are equal in the Grave;
Nor can we in the Dust distinction see:
And such as Hellen is, Belinda must thou be.

VI.

In vain the Hero toils, to shew his Worth,
And from a Stem of Gods derives his Birth;
In fighting Fields he turns the Scale of Fate,
While Tyrants bow, and Kings around him wait;
Yet at pale Death's approach, this godlike Brave
Trembles amidst his Pomp, and shudders like his meanest Slave!
Ah whither is his Strength and Courage flown,
That made the subject World his own!
How Tyrants trembled at his Nod,
Alas where is the God!
Where is his Pride, his Pomp, his Pageantry,
Which brib'd and conquer'd all — — except the Destiny,

That whirls them in the Gulf of black Eternity.
Now in some gloomy Abbey is he laid,
Dismal and silent as the mould'ring Dead,
Who could the World with one small Nod command,
Has nothing but a scanty Spot of Land.
Perhaps a Monument they raise,
Which for a while records his Praise:
Where they inscribe his awful Name,
And all the fleeting Charities of Fame.
But then some Briar, or destroying Root,

Will eat its way, and thro' the Marble shoot —
The Tomb defac'd! this great, this god-like King,
Is a Romantic Tale, and a forgotten Thing.