And ill foreboded is our strongest guard.
See from her tomb, as from an humble shrine,
Truth, radiant goddess! sallies on my soul,
And puts delusion's dusky train to flight;
Dispels the mists our sultry passions raise,
From objects low, terrestrial, and obscene;
And shows the real estimate of things; 332
Which no man, unafflicted, ever saw;
Pulls off the veil from virtue's rising charms;
Detects temptation in a thousand lies.
Truth bids me look on men, as autumn leaves,
And all they bleed for, as the summer's dust,
Driven by the whirlwind: lighted by her beams,
I widen my horizon, gain new powers,
See things invisible, feel things remote, 340
Am present with futurities; think nought
To man so foreign, as the joys possess'd;
Nought so much his, as those beyond the grave.
No folly keeps its colour in her sight;
Pale worldly wisdom loses all her charms;
In pompous promise, from her schemes profound,
If future fate she plans, 'tis all in leaves,
Like Sibyl, unsubstantial, fleeting bliss!
At the first blast it vanishes in air.
Not so, celestial: would'st thou know, Lorenzo! 350
How differ worldly wisdom, and divine?
Just as the waning and the waxing moon.
More empty worldly wisdom every day;
And every day more fair her rival shines.
When later, there's less time to play the fool.
Soon our whole term for wisdom is expired
(Thou know'st she calls no council in the grave):
And everlasting fool is writ in fire, 358
Or real wisdom wafts us to the skies.
As worldly schemes resemble Sibyl's leaves,
The good man's days to Sibyl's books compare,
(In ancient story read, thou know'st the tale),
In price still rising, as in number less,
Inestimable quite his final hour. 364
For that who thrones can offer, offer thrones;
Insolvent worlds the purchase cannot pay.
"O let me die his death!" all nature cries.
"Then live his life"--all nature falters there;
Our great physician daily to consult,
To commune with the grave, our only cure. 370
What grave prescribes the best?--A friend's; and yet,
From a friend's grave, how soon we disengage!
Even to the dearest, as his marble, cold.
Why are friends ravish'd from us? 'Tis to bind,
By soft affection's ties, on human hearts,