TO THE NEW YEAR. GREAT Janus! (who dost, sure, my mistress view With all thine eyes, yet think'st them all too few) If thy fore-face do see No better things prepared for me, Than did thy face behind; If still her breast must shut against me be Borne down that stream of Time which no return. can make ! Alas! what need I thus to pray? Whether I would or no, will bear At least a part of me away: [hours, His well-horsed troops, the months, and days, and Though never any-where they stay, Make in their passage all their prey; [find The months, days, hours, that march i'the' rear, can Nought of value left behind. All the good wine of life our drunken youth devours; Sourness and lees, which to the bottom sink, Remain for latter years to drink ; Until, some one offended with the taste, The vessel breaks, and out the wretched relics run at last. If then, young Year! thou needst must come The birth beyond its time can never tarry, Choose thy attendants well; for 'tis not thee Be seen among thy train : Either black Sin, or gaudy Vanity: Nay, if thou lovest me, gentle Year! There's of this caution little need, Such a mistake: Such Love I mean, alone, As by thy cruel predecessors has been shown; For, though I have too much cause to doubt it, I fain would try for once if Life can live without it. Into the future times why do we pry, And seek to antedate our misery? Like jealous men, why are we longing still We In whatsoever character The book of Fate is writ, "Tis well we understand not it; should grow mad with little learning there: Upon the brink of every ill we did foresee, Undecently and foolishly We should stand shivering, and but slowly venture The fatal flood to enter. Since, willing or unwilling, we must do it; They feel least cold and pain who plunge at once into it. WE'RE ill by these grammarians used; To the grave's fruitful womb, We call one step a race: But angels, in their full enlighten'd state, When we, by' a foolish figure, say, Behold an old man dead!" then they [born!" Speak properly, and cry, "Behold a man-child My eyes are open'd, and I see Like men of business; and for business walk VOL. II. N From place to place, And mighty voyages we take, And mighty journeys seem to make, O'er sea and land, the little point that has no space: Some captives call, and say, "the rest are slain :" From hieroglyphic proofs of heraldry, Who write of twenty thousand years, Whilst all these Shadows, that for Things we take, Are but the empty dreams which in Death's sleep we make. But these fantastic errors of our dream We pray God our friends' torments to prolong, To be as long a-dying as Methusalem. Would rudely force to dwell The noble vigorous bird already wing'd to part. THE THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. AWAKE, and with attention hear, To what from God, I, his loud prophet, tell. Than e'er was raised by God before, [about. To scourge the rebel world, and march it round I see the sword of God brandish'd above, I see the scabbard cast away; How red anon with slaughter will it prove! How will it sweat and reek in blood! How will the scarlet-glutton be o'ergorged with his And devour all the mighty feast! Nothing soon but bones will rest. God does a solemn sacrifice prepare; Not of kids, nor of their dams, [food, Not of heifers, nor of lambs: [are. The altar all the land, and all men in 't the victims Since, wicked men's more guilty blood to spare, |