The Christian Scholar :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Thy joyful home shall welcome thee no more,
“Nor wife, nor children sweet as heretofore
“Snatch the fond kiss, and to thy bosom press'd
“With an unutter'd sweetness fill thy breast.
“To aid thyself and thine no more thy power!
“‘Poor man!’ they say, ‘poor man! one evil hour
“Hath all life's blessings swept from thee away.’
“But thus bewailing they omit to say
“That no desires of these with thee remain;
“Which could their hearts perceive, their words attain,
“From anguish and despair would set them free.
“Thou in thy death for all eternity
“From human griefs and sickness art relieved.
“We by thy dismal tomb, of thee bereaved,
“Weep on insatiably, and left forlorn
“For ever think on thee, for ever mourn. . .

“Thus too when men the festive board around,
“Lifting their cups, with flowery chaplets crown'd,

234

“Say from the heart, ‘Short these enjoyments last
“To feeble man; 'tis soon among the past,
“And then for ever and for ever gone!’
“As if the dead hereafter would bemoan
“Such loss, when all such longings have an end,
“Or thirst for wine would after death attend.”

[_]

Ibid. 1058—1098.

“But wilt thou doubt, and think it hard to die
“Whose life is but a death with wakeful eye?
“The greater part of life in sleep to lie,
“And through the day no less, as one asleep,
“In an unreal dream to laugh and weep:
“Thy mind oppress'd with apprehensions vain,
“Unable oft to find what gives thee pain:
“On all sides, like a drunken man , distress'd,
“In vague uncertainty of thine unrest.

“Thus heavily doth on men's spirits dwell
“A weight of which they seem thus sensible;
“But could they once of this the sources find,
“From whence so great a burden weighs the mind,
“And knew the cause of their own misery,
“They could not spend their lives as now we see,
“Each knowing not, yet seeking still to know
“What he would wish,—fast hurrying to and fro,

235

“As if to throw aside some load of pain,
“To change each place, yet no where to remain

“From a great house one issues forth, o'ercome
“And sated with his home,—then back to home
“As suddenly returns; for he can find
“Abroad nought better than he left behind.
“With headlong haste one to his villa drives,
“As if his walls were burning; there arrives,
“And stands upon the threshold, in disdain
“And hesitation;—should he there remain,
“He sleeps and in oblivion settles down,
“Or starts again and hurries to the town.

“Thus each man from himself attempts to flee,
“But bears within him that same enemy
“From which he would escape, that frets the more,
“Nor doth of his disease the cause explore;
“Which did he well discern he soon would cast
“All other things aside, and to the last
“The nature of man's being strive to know:
“For 'tis not one short hour for weal or woe
“That is at stake,—but all eternity,
“All after death—the life that is to be.”

See Job xii. 25; Ps. cvii. 27.

See Dr. Pusey's Advent Sermons, S. VIII. p. 110.—“Where well-nigh all countenances or motions are full of eagerness, anxiety; all bent on something, seeking, but finding not, because they are seeking all things out of God, all but Himself, except when, here and there, they at last become very emptiness, because they know no more what to seek or find, but have lost themselves.”