Classic Poem

Live ever here, Lorenzo?--shocking thought!
So shocking, they who wish, disown it too;
Disown from shame, what they from folly crave.
Live ever in the womb, nor see the light?
For what live ever here?--with lab'ring step
To tread out former footsteps? Pace the round
Eternal? to climb life's worn, heavy wheel,
Which draws up nothing new? to beat and beat,
The beaten track? to bid each wretched day
The former mock? to surfeit on the same,
And yawn our joys? or thank a misery
For change, tho' sad? To see what we have seen?
Hear, till unheard, the same old slabber'd tale?
To taste the tasted, and at each return
Less tasteful? O'er our palates to decant
Another vintage? Strain a flatter year,
Thro' loaded vessels, and a laxer tone?
Crazy machines to grind earth's wasted fruits!
Ill-ground, and worse concocted! Load, not Life!
The rational foul kennels of excess!
Still-streaming thoroughfares of dull debauch
Trembling each gulp, lest death should snatch the bowl.
Then welcome, death! thy dread harbingers,
Age and disease; disease, tho' long my guest;
That plucks my nerves, those tender strings of life;
Which, pluckt a little more, will toll the bell,
That calls my few friends to my funeral;
Where feeble nature drops, perhaps, a tear,
While reason and religion, better taught,
Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory;
It binds in chains the raging ills of life:
Lust and ambition, wrath and avarice,
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power.
That ills corrosive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O death! is thine.
Our day of dissolution!--name it right;
'Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich
And ripe: What tho' the sickle, sometimes keen,
Just scars us as we reap the golden grain?
More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound.
Birth's feeble cry; and death's deep dismal groan,
Are slender tributes low-taxt nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each, a life!
But O! the last the former so transcends,
Life dies, compar'd: Life lives beyond the grave.
And feel I, death! no joy from thought of thee,
Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires
With ev'ry nobler thought and fairer deed!
Death, the deliverer, who rescues man!
Death, the rewarder, who the rescu'd crowns!
Death, that absolves my birth; a curse without it!
Rich death, that realizes all my cares,
Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera!
Death, of all pain the period, not of joy;
Joy's source, and subject, still subsist unhurt;
One, in my soul; and one, in her great Sire;
Tho' the four winds were warring for my dust.
Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night,
Tho' prison'd there, my dust too I reclaim,
(To dust when drop proud nature's proudest spheres,)
And live entire. Death is the crown of life:
Were death deny'd, poor man would live in vain;
Were death deny'd, to live would not be life;
Were death deny'd, ev'n fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rise; we reign!
Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies;
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight:
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost.
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When shall I die?--When shall I live for ever?