For what are all their joys to me,
    Which cannot now be mine? 
  But hold—­I feel my gout decrease,
    My troubles laid to rest,
  And truths which would disturb my peace,
    Are painful truths at best. 
  Vainly the time I have to roll
    In sad reflection flies; 50
  Ye fondling passions of my soul! 
    Ye sweet deceits! arise. 
  I wisely change the scene within,
    To things that used to please;
  In pain, philosophy is spleen,
    In health, ’tis only ease.

* * * * *

  A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH.

  By the blue taper’s trembling light,
  No more I waste the wakeful night,
  Intent with endless view to pore
  The schoolmen and the sages o’er: 
  Their books from wisdom widely stray,
  Or point at best the longest way. 
  I’ll seek a readier path, and go
  Where wisdom’s surely taught below.

   How deep yon azure dyes the sky,
  Where orbs of gold unnumber’d lie, 10
  While through their ranks in silver pride
  The nether crescent seems to glide! 
  The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,
  The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
  Where once again the spangled show
  Descends to meet our eyes below. 
  The grounds which on the right aspire,
  In dimness from the view retire: 
  The left presents a place of graves,
  Whose wall the silent water laves. 20
  That steeple guides thy doubtful sight,
  Among the livid gleams of night. 
  There pass, with melancholy state,
  By all the solemn heaps of fate,
  And think, as softly-sad you tread
  Above the venerable dead,
  ’Time was, like thee they life possess’d,
  And time shall be, that thou shalt rest.’

   Those graves, with bending osier bound,
  That nameless heave the crumbled ground, 30
  Quick to the glancing thought disclose
  Where Toil and Poverty repose.

   The flat smooth stones that bear a name,
  The chisel’s slender help to fame,
  Which, e’er our set of friends decay,
  Their frequent steps may wear away,
  A middle race of mortals own,
  Men half-ambitious, all unknown.

   The marble tombs that rise on high,
  Whose dead in vaulted arches lie, 40
  Whose pillars swell with sculptured stones,
  Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones;—­
  These (all the poor remains of state)
  Adorn the rich, or praise the great;
  Who while on earth in fame they live,
  Are senseless of the fame they give.

   Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades,
  The bursting earth unveils the shades! 
  All slow, and wan, and wrapp’d with shrouds,
  They rise in visionary crowds, 50
  And all with sober accent cry,
  ‘Think, mortal, what it is to die!’