Dost lawless passions grasp?—
Judge not thou deal’st in joy;
Its flowers but hide the asp,
Thy revels to destroy.
Who trusts a harlot’s smile,
And by her wiles is led,
Plays with a sword the while,
Hung dropping o’er his head.
Dost doubt my warning song?—
Then doubt the sun gives light;
Doubt truth to teach the wrong,
And wrong alone as right;
And live as lives the knave,
Intrigue’s deceiving guest;
Be tyrant or be slave,
As suits thy ends the best.
Or pause amid thy toils
For visions won and lost,
And count the fancied spoils,
If ’ere they quit the cost;
And if they still possess,
Thy mind as worthy things;
Plat straws with bedlam Bess,
And call them diamond rings.
Thy folly’s past advice,
Thy heart’s already won,
Thy fall’s above all price,
So go and be undone:
For all who thus prefer
The seeming great for small,
Shall make wine vinegar,
And sweetest honey gall.
Would’st heed the truths I sing,
To profit wherewithal?
Clip Folly’s wanton wing,
And keep her within call.
I’ve little else to give,
What thou canst easy try;
The lesson how to live,
Is but to learn to die.
THOUGHTS IN A CHURCH-YARD
AH! happy spot, how still it seems
Where crowds of buried memories sleep;
How quiet Nature o’er them dreams,
’Tis but our troubled thoughts that weep.
Life’s book shuts here—its page is lost
With them, and all its busy claims,
The poor are from its memory crost,
The rich leave nothing but their names.
There rest the weary from their toil;
There lie the troubled, free from care;
Who through the strife of life’s turmoil
Sought rest, and only found it there.
With none to fear his scornful brow,
There sleeps the master with the slave;
And heedless of all titles now,
Repose the honoured and the brave.
There rest the miser and the heir,
Both careless who their wealth shall reap;
E’en love finds cure for heart-aches here,
And none enjoy a sounder sleep.
The fair one far from folly’s freaks,
As quiet as her neighbour seems,
Unconscious now of rosy cheeks,
Without a rival in her dreams.