THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, IMPLIED FROM ITS MOTION. ............ THE soul, which in this earthly mould At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear, Yet under heav'n she cannot light on aught For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth, With this desire she hath a native might But since our life so fast away doth slide*, Of which swift little time so much we spend While some few things we through the sense do strain, Ere we the principles of skill attain. Nosce Teipsum, by Sir John Davis, p. 68. THE INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GREATNESS. FOND man, that looks on earth for happiness, Nor can we pay the fine and rentage due; Though now but writ, and seal'd, and giv'n anew, Yet daily we it break, then daily must renew. * But since our life so fast away doth slide, &c.] So, Pope: Life's stream for observation will not stay, It hurries all too fast to mark their way: In vain sedate reflections we would make, When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take. On human actions reason though you can, It may be reason, but it is not man: Epist. to Sir R. Temple. Why should'st thou here look for perpetual good, With gilded tops, and silver turrets shining; There now the hart fearless of greyhound feeds, There shrieking satyrs fill the people's empty steads. Where is th' Assyrian lion's golden hide*, Or he which 'twixt a lion and a pard, Through all the world with nimble pinions far'd, And to his greedy whelps his conquer'd kingdoms shar'd? Hardly the place of such antiquity, Or note of these great monarchies, we find: And empty name in writ, is left behind: But when this second life and glory fades, And sinks at length in time's obscurer shades, A second fall succeeds, and double death invades. That monstrous beast, which, nurs'd in Tiber's fen, * Where is th' Assyrian lion's golden hide, &c.] Thus, Spenser, in The Ruines of Time: What now is of th' Assyrian lioness, Of whom no footing now on earth appears That overran the East with greedy power, Hughes's Edit. p. 9. That fill'd with costly spoil his gaping den, His batt'ring horns, pull'd out by civil hands, And that black vulture, which with deathful wing Who then shall hope for happiness beneath; Where each new day proclaims chance, change, and death, And life itself's as flit as is the air we breathe? Purple Island, by P. Fletcher, * And that black vulture, which with deathful wing O'ershadows half the earth.] Mr. Hayley, in his Essay on History, has a very bold and magnificent image of this kind. He is about to describe Livy: Of mightier spirit, of majestic frame; With powers proportion'd to the Roman fame, Ep. I. VOL. II. FAITH. THE proudest pitch of that victorious spirit Was but to win the world, whereby t' inherit And glozing title of an age's glory; Would'st thou by conquest win more fame than he, But would'st thou conquer, have thy conquest crown'd By hands of Seraphims, triumph'd with the sound Of heaven's loud trumpet, warbled by the shrill Celestial quire, recorded with a quill Pluck'd from the pinion of an angel's wing, Hath heaven despoil'd what his full hand hath given thee? Of thy dear latest hope, thy bosom friend? |