Yet is their nothing men can do, When chilling age comes creeping on? Cannot we yet some good pursue? Are talents buried? genius gone? If passions slumber in the breast, If follies from the heart be fled; Of laurels let us go in quest, And place them on the poet's head. Yes, we'll redeem the wasted time, And to neglected studies flee; We'll build again the lofty rhyme, Or live, Philosophy, with thee: For reasoning clear, for flight sublime, Eternal fame reward shall be; And to what glorious heights we'll climb, The admiring crowd shall envying see. Begin the song! begin the theme! - Alas! and is Invention dead? Dream we no more the golden dream? Is Mem'ry with her treasures fled? Yes, 'tis too late,--now Reason guides The mind, sole judge in all debate; And thus the important point decides, For laurels, 'tis, alas! too late. What is possess'd we may retain, But for new conquests strive in vain. Beware then, Age, that what was won, If life's past labours, studies, views, Be lost not, now the labour's done, When all thy part is,--not to lose: When thou canst toil or gain no more, Destroy not what was gain'd before. For, all that's gain'd of all that's good, When time shall his weak frame destroy (Their use then rightly understood), Shall man, in happier state, enjoy. Oh! argument for truth divine, For study's cares, for virtue's strife; To know the enjoyment will be thine, In that renew'd, that endless life! 1807 Footnotes {1} It has been suggested to me, that this change from restlessness to repose, in the mind of Sir Eustace, is wrought by a Methodistic call; and it is admitted to be such: a sober and rational conversion could not have happened while the disorder of the brain continued: yet the verses which follow, in a different measure, are not intended to make any religious persuasion appear ridiculous; they are to be supposed as the effect of memory in the disordered mind of the speaker, and, though evidently enthusiastic in respect to language, are not meant to convey any impropriety of sentiment.