Constrain'd to dwell with pain and care, These dregs of life are bought too dear, 'Tis better far to die than bear The torments of another year.[111] Subjected to perpetual ills A thousand deaths around us grow, The frost the tender blossom kills, And roses wither as they blow. Cold nipping winds thy fruits assail, The infant[112] apple seeks the ground, The peaches fall, the cherries fail, The grape receives a fatal wound. The breeze that gently ought to blow Swells to a storm and rends the main, The sun that charm'd the grass to grow Turns hostile and consumes the plain; The mountains waste, the shores decay, Once purling streams are dead and dry-- 'Twas nature's work--'tis nature's play, And nature says that all must die. Yon' flaming lamp, the source of light, In chaos dark shall shroud his beam And leave the world to mother night, A farce, a phantom, or a dream. What now is young must soon be old, Whate'er we love, we soon must leave, 'Tis now too hot, 'tis now too cold-- To live is nothing but to grieve. How bright the morn her course begun, No mists bedimm'd the solar sphere-- The clouds arise--they shade the sun, For nothing can be constant here. Now hope the longing soul employs, In expectation we are blest; But soon the airy phantom flies, For, lo! the treasure is possest. Those monarchs proud that havoc spread, (While pensive nature[113] dropt a tear) Those monarchs have to darkness fled And ruin bounds their mad career. The grandeur of this earthly round, Where Theon[114] would forever be, Is but a name, is but a sound-- Mere emptiness and vanity. Give me the stars, give me the skies, Give me the heaven's remotest sphere, Above these gloomy scenes to rise Of desolation and despair. Those native fires that warmed the mind Now languid grown too dimly glow, Joy has to grief the heart resigned And love itself is changed to woe. The joys of wine are all you boast, These for a moment damp thy pain; The gleam is o'er, the charm is lost-- And darkness clouds the soul again. Then seek no more for bliss below, Where real bliss can ne'er be found, Aspire where sweeter blossoms blow And fairer flowers bedeck the ground. Where plants of life the plains invest And green eternal crowns the year, The little god within thy breast[115] Is weary of his mansion here. Like Phosphor clad in bright array[116] His height meridian to regain, He can, nor will no longer stay[117] To shiver on a frozen plain. Life's journey past, for death[118] prepare, 'Tis but the freedom of the mind, Jove made us mortal--his we are, To Jove, dear Theon,[119] be resigned. [109] _Freeman's Journal_, January 2, 1782. In the editions of 1795 and 1809, the title is "To an Old Man." [110] "With me a while, old man, repair."--_Ed. 1795._