That glorious promise angels were esteem'd Too mean to bring; a promise, their Adored 62 Descended to communicate, and press, By counsel, miracle, life, death, on man. Such is the world Lorenzo's wisdom woos, And on its thorny pillow seeks repose; A pillow, which, like opiates ill prepared, Intoxicates, but not composes; fills The visionary mind with gay chimeras, All the wild trash of sleep, without the rest; 70 What unfeign'd travel, and what dreams of joy! How frail, men, things! how momentary, both! Fantastic chase of shadows hunting shades! The gay, the busy, equal though unlike; Equal in wisdom, differently wise! Through flowery meadows, and through dreary wastes, One bustling, and one dancing, into death. There's not a day, but, to the man of thought, Betrays some secret, that throws new reproach On life, and makes him sick of seeing more. 80 The scenes of business tell us--"What are men;" The scenes of pleasure--"What is all beside;" There, others we despise; and here, ourselves: Amid disgust eternal, dwells delight? 'Tis approbation strikes the string of joy. What wondrous prize has kindled this career, Stuns with the din, and chokes us with the dust, On life's gay stage, one inch above the grave? The proud run up and down in quest of eyes; 89 The sensual, in pursuit of something worse; The grave, of gold; the politic, of power; And all, of other butterflies, as vain! As eddies draw things frivolous, and light, How is man's heart by vanity drawn in; On the swift circle of returning toys, Whirl'd, straw-like, round and round, and then engulf'd, Where gay delusion darkens to despair! "This is a beaten track."--Is this a track Should not be beaten? Never beat enough, Till enough learn'd the truths it would inspire. 100 Shall Truth be silent, because Folly frowns? Turn the world's history; what find we there, But Fortune's sports, or Nature's cruel claims, Or Woman's artifice, or Man's revenge, And endless inhumanities on man? Fame's trumpet seldom sounds, but, like the knell, It brings bad tidings: how it hourly blows Man's misadventures round the listening world! Man is the tale of narrative old time; Sad tale; which high as Paradise begins; 110 As if, the toil of travel to delude, From stage to stage, in his eternal round, The Days, his daughters, as they spin our hours On Fortune's wheel, where accident unthought Oft, in a moment, snaps life's strongest thread, Each, in her turn, some tragic story tells, With, now and then, a wretched farce between; And fills his chronicle with human woes. Time's daughters, true as those of men, deceive us; Not one, but puts some cheat on all mankind: 120 While in their father's bosom, not yet ours,