F LUTTERING insect of a day,
Gaily you your wings display;
Lightly you traverse your round
O'er the flower-enamell'd ground;
Or buzz beneath the hazle shade,
With primrose pale, and violet spread;
By gushing stream, or dimpling pool,
Where yielding air is soft and cool,
Unmindful of the trout beneath,
That lurks in ambush for your death:
Or subtle spider on the brow,
That weaves the web of fate for you —
Where, lawyer-like, he spreads his gin,
To draw the gay and thoughtless in.
See ye not yon gloomy west,
Where lowering clouds the sky o'ercast?
There distant darkness dims the plain,
Prophetic of approaching rain;
Or chilling blast, with hailstones fraught,
Might murder myriads in a thought,
And dash your being, and your name,
To barren nought, from whence ye came:
Nor leave a mourner to relate,
Or sing a brother's hapless fate.
Yet still ye wheel, and still ye sing,
On fluttering pleasure's airy wing,
Unconscious of your short-liv'd power,
That stints your being to an hour.
Alas! your sight, so quick and clear,
Views but the objects that are near.
Your convex eye, that's made to view
Each film, and wing, and form, and hue
Of atoms, insects, nicely made,
From eager poring Science hid;
But leaves unnotic'd hills and towers,
And clouds, and skies, and coming showers.
With forethought shorter than your sight,
Fearless ye urge your aerial flight,
As lightly round the dance ye wheel
Of life's fantastic fairy reel.
But when the thread of life is spun,
Your debts are paid, your work is done.
So fares the beauteous, hapless maid,
Tutor'd in flattery's empty shade,
While youthful blossoms paint her form,
She sees not ruin's ruthless storm;
How soon her thread of pleasure's spun,
And ends ere life is well begun!
Some callous wretch, of reptile kind,
Destroys her peace, and taints her mind;
Whose pois'nous tongue's with flattery oil'd,
But leaves her, when her rose is soil'd.
Thus fares the Poet, and his lays,
If Fame — the sun-shine of his days —
Beam brisk, like thee, he'll mount and sing,
On soaring Fancy's airy wing;
And ignis fatuus -like he'll shine,
While swains for him the laurels twine;
Till critics all his lines dissect,
And damn his works with disrespect.
Adieu, his sanguine hopes are fled;
His name is in oblivion dead.
'Tis thus, if human life we view —
The picture's too severely true;
Tho' arm'd with Reason's piercing eye,
Too oft we ape the silly fly;
Till lawless passions empire claim,
And damn our souls, and blot our fame.
Gaily you your wings display;
Lightly you traverse your round
O'er the flower-enamell'd ground;
Or buzz beneath the hazle shade,
With primrose pale, and violet spread;
By gushing stream, or dimpling pool,
Where yielding air is soft and cool,
Unmindful of the trout beneath,
That lurks in ambush for your death:
Or subtle spider on the brow,
That weaves the web of fate for you —
Where, lawyer-like, he spreads his gin,
To draw the gay and thoughtless in.
See ye not yon gloomy west,
Where lowering clouds the sky o'ercast?
There distant darkness dims the plain,
Prophetic of approaching rain;
Or chilling blast, with hailstones fraught,
Might murder myriads in a thought,
And dash your being, and your name,
To barren nought, from whence ye came:
Nor leave a mourner to relate,
Or sing a brother's hapless fate.
Yet still ye wheel, and still ye sing,
On fluttering pleasure's airy wing,
Unconscious of your short-liv'd power,
That stints your being to an hour.
Alas! your sight, so quick and clear,
Views but the objects that are near.
Your convex eye, that's made to view
Each film, and wing, and form, and hue
Of atoms, insects, nicely made,
From eager poring Science hid;
But leaves unnotic'd hills and towers,
And clouds, and skies, and coming showers.
With forethought shorter than your sight,
Fearless ye urge your aerial flight,
As lightly round the dance ye wheel
Of life's fantastic fairy reel.
But when the thread of life is spun,
Your debts are paid, your work is done.
So fares the beauteous, hapless maid,
Tutor'd in flattery's empty shade,
While youthful blossoms paint her form,
She sees not ruin's ruthless storm;
How soon her thread of pleasure's spun,
And ends ere life is well begun!
Some callous wretch, of reptile kind,
Destroys her peace, and taints her mind;
Whose pois'nous tongue's with flattery oil'd,
But leaves her, when her rose is soil'd.
Thus fares the Poet, and his lays,
If Fame — the sun-shine of his days —
Beam brisk, like thee, he'll mount and sing,
On soaring Fancy's airy wing;
And ignis fatuus -like he'll shine,
While swains for him the laurels twine;
Till critics all his lines dissect,
And damn his works with disrespect.
Adieu, his sanguine hopes are fled;
His name is in oblivion dead.
'Tis thus, if human life we view —
The picture's too severely true;
Tho' arm'd with Reason's piercing eye,
Too oft we ape the silly fly;
Till lawless passions empire claim,
And damn our souls, and blot our fame.