ns love to gall?
All shines to them, that for a season shines. 1200
Each act, each thought, he questions, "What its weight,
Its colour what, a thousand ages hence?"-- 1202
And what it there appears, he deems it now.
Hence, pure are the recesses of his soul.
The godlike man has nothing to conceal.
His virtue, constitutionally deep,
Has habit's firmness, and affection's flame;
Angels, allied, descend to feed the fire;
And Death, which others slays, makes him a god.
And now, Lorenzo! bigot of this world! 1210
Wont to disdain poor bigots caught by Heaven!
Stand by thy scorn, and be reduced to nought:
For what art thou?--Thou boaster! while thy glare,
Thy gaudy grandeur, and mere worldly worth,
Like a broad mist, at distance, strikes us most;
And, like a mist, is nothing when at hand;
His merit, like a mountain, on approach,
Swells more, and rises nearer to the skies,
By promise now, and, by possession, soon,
(Too soon, too much, it cannot be) his own. 1220
From this thy just annihilation rise,
Lorenzo! rise to something, by reply.
The world, thy client, listens, and expects;
And longs to crown thee with immortal praise.
Canst thou be silent? No; for Wit is thine;
And Wit talks most, when least she has to say,
And Reason interrupts not her career.
She'll say--that mists above the mountains rise;
And, with a thousand pleasantries, amuse;
She'll sparkle, puzzle, flutter, raise a dust, 1230
And fly conviction, in the dust she raised.
Wit, how delicious to man's dainty taste!
'Tis precious, as the vehicle of sense;
But, as its substitute, a dire disease.
Pernicious talent! flatter'd by the world,
By the blind world, which thinks the talent rare. 1236
Wisdom is rare, Lorenzo! wit abounds;
Passion can give it; sometimes wine inspires
The lucky flash; and madness rarely fails.
Whatever cause the spirit strongly stirs,
Confers the bays, and rivals thy renown.
For thy renown, 'twere well was this the worst;
Chance often hits it; and, to pique thee more, 1243
See Dulness, blundering on vivacities,
Shakes her sage head at the calamity,
Which has exposed, and let her down to thee.
But Wisdom, awful Wisdom! which inspects,
Discerns, compares, weighs, separates, infers,
Seizes the