To senseless dust, and to a fleeting shade
Changes the life-warm Being!—Ah! who knows
If the next dawn our eye-lids may pervade?
Darken'd and seal'd, perchance, in long, and last repose!
When vivid Thought's unceasing force assails,
It shakes, from Life's frail glass, the ebbing sands;
Their course run out, ah! what to us avails
Our fame's high note, tho' swelling it expands!
Reflect, that each convivial joy we share
Amid encircling Friends, with grace benign,
Escapes the grasp of our rapacious Heir;—
Pile then the steaming board, and quaff the rosy wine!
Illustrious Hayley!—in that cruel hour,
When o'er thee Fate the sable flag shall wave,
Not thy keen wit, thy fancy's splendid power,
Knowledge, or worth, shall snatch thee from the grave.
Not to his Mason's grief, from Death's dim plains
Was honor'd Gray's departed form resign'd;
No tears dissolve the cold Lethean chains,
That, far from busy Life, the mortal semblance bind.
Then, for the bright creations of the brain,
O! do not thou from health's gay leisure turn,
Lest we, like tuneful Mason, sigh in vain,
And grasp a timeless, tho' a laurel'd Urn!
[1]: Aglaia, the eldest of the Graces.
TO LIGURIA.
BOOK THE FOURTH, ODE THE TENTH.
O thou! exulting in the charms,
Nature, with lavish bounty, showers,
When youth no more thy spirit warms,
And stealing age thy pride alarms,
For fleeting graces, and for waning powers;