Shall our pale, wither'd hands, be still stretch'd out, Trembling, at once, with eagerness and age? With avarice, and convulsions, grasping hard? Grasping at air! for what has earth beside? Man wants but little; nor that little, long; How soon must he resign his very dust, Which frugal nature lent him for an hour! 120 Years unexperienced rush on numerous ills; And soon as man, expert from time, has found 122 The key of life, it opes the gates of death. When in this vale of years I backward look, And miss such numbers, numbers too of such, Firmer in health, and greener in their age, And stricter on their guard, and fitter far To play life's subtle game, I scarce believe I still survive: and am I fond of life, Who scarce can think it possible, I live? 130 Alive by miracle! or, what is next, Alive by Mead! if I am still alive, Who long have buried what gives life to live, Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought. Life's lee is not more shallow, than impure, And vapid; sense and reason show the door, Call for my bier, and point me to the dust. O thou great arbiter of life and death! Nature's immortal, immaterial Sun! Whose all-prolific beam late call'd me forth 140 From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay The worm's inferior, and, in rank, beneath The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow, To drink the spirit of the golden day, And triumph in existence; and could know No motive, but my bliss; and hast ordain'd A rise in blessing! with the patriarch's joy, Thy call I follow to the land unknown; I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust; Or life, or death, is equal; neither weighs: 150 All weight in this--O let me live to thee! Though nature's terrors thus may be repress'd; Still frowns grim Death; guilt points the tyrant's spear. And whence all human guilt? From death forgot. Ah me! too long I set at nought the swarm Of friendly warnings, which around me flew; 156 And smiled, unsmitten: small my cause to smile! Death's admonitions, like shafts upwards shot, More dreadful by delay, the longer ere They strike our hearts, the deeper is their wound; O think how deep, Lorenzo! here it stings: Who can appease its anguish? How it burns! 162 What hand the barb'd, envenom'd thought can draw? What healing hand can pour the balm of peace? And turn my sight undaunted on the tomb? With joy,--with grief, that healing hand I see; Ah! too conspicuous! it is fix'd on high. On high?--What means my phrensy? I blaspheme; Alas! how low! how far beneath the skies! The skies it form'd; and now it bleeds for me-- 170 But bleeds the balm I want--yet still it bleeds; Draw the dire steel--ah, no! the dreadful blessing What heart or can sustain, or dares forego?