Classic Poem

O night! dark Night! wrapped round with Stygian gloom!
Thy riding-hood opaque, wrought by the hands
Of Clotho and of Atropos: — those hands
Which spin my thread of life! — so near its end.
Ah wherefore, silent goddess, dost thou now
Alarm with terrors? — Silence sounds alarms
To me, and darkness dazzles my weak mind!
Hark, 'tis the death-watch! Posts themselves can speak
His awful language. Stop, insatiate worm!
I feel thy summons: — to my fellow-worms
Thou bidd'st me hasten! — I obey thy call,
For wherefore should I live? — Vain life to me
Is but a tattered garment, a patched rag,
That ill defends me from the cold of age.
Cramped are my faculties! my eyes grow dim;
No music charms my ear — no meats my taste;
The females fly me — and my very wife,
Poor woman! knows me not! — —
Ye fluttering, idle vanities of life,
Where are you flown? — The birds that used to sing
Amidst my spreading branches now forsake
The lifeless trunk, and find no shelter there.
What's life? — What's death? — thus coveted and feared:
Life is a fleeting shadow: — death no more!
Death's a dark lantern, life a candle's end
Stuck on a save-all, soon to end in stink.
The grave's a privy; life the alley green
Directing there — where 'chance on either side
A sweetbriar hedge, or shrubs of brighter hue,
Amuse us, and their treach'rous sweets dispense.
Death chases life, and stops it ere it reach
The topmost round of Fortune's restless wheel.
Wheel! Life's a wheel, and each man is the ass
That turns it round, receiving in the end
But water or rank thistles for his pains!
And yet, Lorenzo, if considered well,
A life of labour is a life of ease;
Pain gives true joy, and want is luxury.
Pleasure not chaste is like an opera tune,
Makes man not man, and castrates real joy.
Would you be merry? Search the charnel-house,
Where Death inhabits, — give the king of fears
A midnight ball, and lead up Holben's dance.
How weak, yet strong, how easy, yet severe,
Are Laughter's chains! which thrall a willing world.
The noisy idiot shakes her bells at all,
Nor e'en the Bible or the poet spares.
Fools banter heav'n itself, O Young! — and thee!