The Complaint,

or Night Thoughts

on Life, Time, Friendship,

Death, and Immortality:

In Nine Nights

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Night I.

On life, death, and immortality.

Humbly inscribed to the right honourable

Arthur Onslow, Esq., Speaker of the House of Commons.

Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!

He, like the world, his ready visit pays

Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;

Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,

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And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose

I wake: how happy they who wake no more!

Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.

I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams

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Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought,

From wave to wave of fancied misery,

At random drove, her helm of reason lost:

Though now restored, 't is only change of pain,

(A bitter change!) severer for severe.

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The Day too short for my distress; and Night,

E'en in the zenith of her dark domain,

Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,

In rayless majesty, now stretches forth

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Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.

Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!

Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds;

Creation sleeps. 'T is as the general pulse

Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause;

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An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd:

Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.

Silence and Darkness! solemn sisters! twins

From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought

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To reason, and on reason build resolve,

(That column of true majesty in man,)

Assist me: I will thank you in the grave;

The grave your kingdom: there this frame shall fall

A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.

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But what are ye?—

Thou, who didst put to flight

Primeval Silence, when the morning stars,

Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball;—

O Thou, whose Word from solid darkness struck

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That spark, the sun! strike wisdom from my soul;

My soul, which flies to Thee, her trust, her treasure,

As misers to their gold, while others rest.

Through this opaque of Nature and of soul,

This double night, transmit one pitying ray,

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To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind,

(A mind that fain would wander from its woe,)

Lead it through various scenes of life and death;

And from each scene the noblest truths inspire.

Nor less inspire my conduct than my song:

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Teach my best reason, reason; my best will

Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve

Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:

Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd

On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

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The bell strikes one. We take no note of time

But from its loss. To give it then a tongue

Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours.

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Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.

It is the signal that demands despatch:

How much is to be done! My hopes and fears

Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge

Look down—on what? A fathomless abyss,

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A dread eternity! how surely mine!

And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,

How complicate, how wonderful is man!

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How passing wonder He who made him such!

Who centred in our make such strange extremes!

From different natures marvellously mix'd,

Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!

Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!

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Midway from nothing to the Deity!

A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb'd!

Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine!

Dim miniature of greatness absolute!

An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!

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Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

A worm! a god!—I tremble at myself,

And in myself am lost! At home a stranger,

Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,

And wondering at her own. How reason reels!

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O what a miracle to man is man,

Triumphantly distress'd! what joy! what dread!

Alternately transported and alarm'd!

What can preserve my life? or what destroy?

An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;

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Legions of angels can't confine me there.

'T is past conjecture; all things rise in proof:

While o'er my limbs Sleep's soft dominion spread,

What though my soul fantastic measures trod

O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom

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Of pathless woods; or, down the craggy steep

Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool;

Or scaled the cliff; or danced on hollow winds,

With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?

Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature

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Of subtler essence than the trodden clod;

Active, aërial, towering, unconfined,

Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall.

E'en silent Night proclaims my soul immortal:

E'en silent Night proclaims eternal day.

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For human weal, Heaven husbands all events;

Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.

Why then their loss deplore that are not lost?

Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around

In infidel distress? Are angels there?

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Slumbers, raked up in dust, ethereal fire?

They live! they greatly live a life on earth

Unkindled, unconceived; and from an eye

Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall

On me, more justly number'd with the dead.

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This is the desert, this the solitude:

How populous, how vital is the grave!

This is creation's melancholy vault,

The vale funereal, the sad cypress-gloom;

The land of apparitions, empty shades!

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All, all on earth is shadow, all beyond

Is substance; the reverse is Folly's creed:

How solid all, where change shall be no more!

This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,

The twilight of our day, the vestibule:

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Life's theatre as yet is shut, and Death,

Strong Death, alone can heave the massy bar,

This gross impediment of clay remove,

And make us embryos of existence free.

From real life but little more remote

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Is he, not yet a candidate for light,

The future embryo, slumb'ring in his sire.

Embryos we must be till we burst the shell,

Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life,

The life of gods (O transport!) and of man.

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Yet man (fool man!) here buries all his thoughts;

Inters celestial hopes without one sigh;

Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,

Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by Heaven

To fly at infinite; and reach it there

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Where seraphs gather immortality,

On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.

What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow

In His full beam, and ripen for the just,

Where momentary ages are no more!

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Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death expire!

And is it in the flight of threescore years

To push eternity from human thought,

And smother souls immortal in the dust?

A soul immortal, spending all her fires,

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Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,

Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd,

At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge,

Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,

To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

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Where falls this censure? It o'erwhelms myself.

How was my heart incrusted by the world!

O how self-fetter'd was my grovelling soul!

How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round

In silken thought, which reptile Fancy spun,

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Till darken'd Reason lay quite clouded o'er

With soft conceit of endless comfort here,

Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!

Night visions may befriend (as sung above):

Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt

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Of things impossible! (could sleep do more?)

Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!

Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!

Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!

How richly were my noon-tide trances hung

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With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys!

Joy behind joy, in endless perspective!

Till at Death's toll, whose restless iron tongue

Calls daily for his millions at a meal,

Starting I woke, and found myself undone.

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Where now my frenzy's pompous furniture?

The cobwebb'd cottage, with its ragged wall

Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!

The spider's most attenuated thread

Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie

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On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.

O ye blest scenes of permanent delight!

Full above measure! lasting beyond bound!

A perpetuity of bliss is bliss.

Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,

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That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy,

And quite unparadise the realms of light.

Safe are you lodged above these rolling spheres;

The baleful influence of whose giddy dance

Sheds sad vicissitude on all beneath.

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Here teems with revolutions every hour,

And rarely for the better; or the best

More mortal than the common births of fate.

Each Moment has its sickle, emulous

Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep

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Strikes empires from the root; each Moment plays

His little weapon in the narrower sphere

Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down

The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss.

Bliss! sublunary bliss!—proud words, and vain!

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Implicit treason to Divine decree!

A bold invasion of the rights of Heaven!

I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air.

O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace,

What darts of agony had miss'd my heart!

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Death! great proprietor of all! 't is thine

To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.

The sun himself by thy permission shines;

And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his sphere.

Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust

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Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean?

Why thy peculiar rancour wreak'd on me?

Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?

Thy shaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was slain;

And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.

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O Cynthia! why so pale? dost thou lament

Thy wretched neighbour? grieve to see thy wheel

Of ceaseless change outwhirl'd in human life?

How wanes my borrow'd bliss! from Fortune's smile,

Precarious courtesy! not Virtue's sure,

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Self-given, solar ray of sound delight.

In every varied posture, place, and hour,

How widow'd every thought of every joy!

Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace!

Through the dark postern of time long elapsed,

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Led softly by the stillness of the night,

Led like a murderer, (and such it proves!)

Strays (wretched rover!) o'er the pleasing past;

In quest of wretchedness perversely strays;

And finds all desert now; and meets the ghosts

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Of my departed joys; a numerous train!

I rue the riches of my former fate;

Sweet comfort's blasted clusters I lament;

I tremble at the blessings once so dear;

And every pleasure pains me to the heart.

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Yet why complain? or why complain for one?

Hangs out the sun his lustre but for me,

The single man? Are angels all beside?

I mourn for millions: 't is the common lot;

In this shape, or in that, has Fate entail'd

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The mother's throes on all of woman born,

Not more the children, than sure heirs, of Pain.

War, Famine, Pest, Volcano, Storm, and Fire,

Intestine Broils, Oppression with her heart

Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind.

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God's image, disinherited of day,

Here, plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made.

There, beings, deathless as their haughty lord,

Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;

And plough the winter's wave, and reap despair.

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Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,

In battle lopp'd away, with half their limbs,

Beg bitter bread through realms their valour saved,

If so the tyrant, or his minion, doom.

Want, and incurable Disease, (fell pair!)

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On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize

At once, and make a refuge of the grave.

How groaning hospitals eject their dead!

What numbers groan for sad admission there!

What numbers, once in Fortune's lap high-fed,

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Solicit the cold hand of Charity!

To shock us more,—solicit it in vain!

Ye silken sons of Pleasure! since in pains

You rue more modish visits, visit here,

And breathe from your debauch: give, and reduce

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Surfeit's dominion o'er you: but so great

Your impudence, you blush at what is right.

Happy, did sorrow seize on such alone!

Not Prudence can defend, or Virtue save;

Disease invades the chastest temperance;

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And punishment the guiltless; and alarm,

Through thickest shades, pursues the fond of peace.

Man's caution often into danger turns,

And his guard, falling, crushes him to death.

Not Happiness itself makes good her name;

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Our very wishes give us not our wish.

How distant oft the thing we dote on most

From that for which we dote, felicity!

The smoothest course of nature has its pains;

And truest friends, through error, wound our rest.

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Without misfortune, what calamities!

And what hostilities, without a foe!

Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.

But endless is the list of human ills,

And sighs might sooner fail than cause to sigh.

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A part how small of the terraqueous globe

Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,

Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands;

Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death!

Such is earth's melancholy map! But, far

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More sad! this earth is a true map of man.

So bounded are its haughty lord's delights

To Woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss,

Loud sorrows howl, envenom'd passions bite,

Ravenous calamities our vitals seize,

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And threatening fate wide opens to devour.

What then am I, who sorrow for myself?

In age, in infancy, from others' aid

Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind:

That Nature's first, last lesson to mankind:

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The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels.

More generous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts;

And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.

Nor Virtue, more than Prudence, bids me give

Swollen thought a second channel; who divide,

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They weaken too, the torrent of their grief.

Take then, O world! thy much-indebted tear:

How sad a sight is human happiness

To those whose thought can pierce beyond an hour!

O thou, whate'er thou art, whose heart exults!

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Wouldst thou I should congratulate thy fate?

I know thou wouldst; thy pride demands it from me.

Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs,

The salutary censure of a friend.

Thou happy wretch! by blindness art thou blest;

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By dotage dandled to perpetual smiles.

Know, smiler, at thy peril art thou pleased;

Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.

Misfortune, like a creditor severe,

But rises in demand for her delay;

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She makes a scourge of past prosperity,

To sting thee more, and double thy distress.

Lorenzo, Fortune makes her court to thee.

Thy fond heart dances, while the siren sings.

Dear is thy welfare; think me not unkind;

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I would not damp, but to secure, thy joys.

Think not that fear is sacred to the storm:

Stand on thy guard against the smiles of Fate.

Is Heaven tremendous in its frowns? Most sure;

And in its favours formidable too:

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Its favours here are trials, not rewards;

A call to duty, not discharge from care;

And should alarm us full as much as woes;

Awake us to their cause and consequence;

[O'er our scann'd conduct give a jealous eye,]

And make us tremble, weigh'd with our desert;

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Awe Nature's tumult, and chastise her joys,

Lest, while we clasp, we kill them; nay, invert

To worse than simple misery their charms.

Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,

Like bosom friendships to resentment sour'd,

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With rage envenom'd rise against our peace.

Beware what earth calls happiness; beware

All joys, but joys that never can expire.

Who builds on less than an immortal base,

Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death.

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Mine died with thee, Philander! thy last sigh

Dissolved the charm; the disenchanted earth

Lost all her lustre. Where her glittering towers?

Her golden mountains, where? All darken'd down

To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears:

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The great magician's dead! Thou poor, pale piece

Of out-cast earth, in darkness! what a change

From yesterday! Thy darling hope so near,

(Long-labour'd prize!) O how ambition flush'd

Thy glowing cheek! ambition, truly great,

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Of virtuous praise. Death's subtle seed within,

(Sly, treacherous miner!) working in the dark,

Smiled at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon'd

The worm to riot on that rose so red,

Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!

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Man's foresight is conditionally wise;

Lorenzo! wisdom into folly turns

Oft the first instant its idea fair

To labouring thought is born. How dim our eye!

The present moment terminates our sight;

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Clouds, thick as those on doomsday, drown the next;

We penetrate, we prophesy in vain.

Time is dealt out by particles; and each,

Ere mingled with the streaming sands of life,

By Fate's inviolable oath is sworn

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Deep silence, “where eternity begins.”

By Nature's law, what may be, may be now,

There's no prerogative in human hours.

In human hearts what bolder thought can rise

Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn?

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Where is to-morrow? In another world.

For numbers this is certain; the reverse

Is sure to none; and yet on this Perhaps,

This Peradventure, infamous for lies,

As on a rock of adamant we build

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Our mountain-hopes; spin out eternal schemes,

As we the Fatal Sisters could out-spin,

And, big with life's futurities, expire.

Not e'en Philander had bespoke his shroud.

Nor had he cause; a warning was denied:

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How many fall as sudden, not as safe!

As sudden, though for years admonish'd home!

Of human ills the last extreme beware;

Beware, Lorenzo! a slow-sudden death.

How dreadful that deliberate surprise!

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Be wise to-day, 't is madness to defer;

Next day the fatal precedent will plead;

Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.

Procrastination is the thief of time;

Year after year it steals, till all are fled,

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And to the mercies of a moment leaves

The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

If not so frequent, would not this be strange?

That 't is so frequent, this is stranger still.

Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears

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The palm, “That all men are about to live,”

For ever on the brink of being born.

All pay themselves the compliment to think

They one day shall not drivel; and their pride

On this reversion takes up ready praise,

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At least their own; their future selves applauds;

How excellent that life they ne'er will lead!

Time lodged in their own hands is folly's vails;

That lodged in Fate's, to wisdom they consign;

The thing they can't but purpose they postpone.

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'T is not in folly not to scorn a fool;

And scarce in human wisdom to do more.

All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that through every stage: when young, indeed,

In full content we sometimes nobly rest,

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Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.

At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;

At fifty, chides his infamous delay,

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Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;

In all the magnanimity of thought

Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal.

All men think all men mortal but themselves;

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Themselves, when some alarming shock of Fate

Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread.

But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,

Soon close; where pass'd the shaft, no trace is found.

As from the wing no scar the sky retains,

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The parted wave no furrow from the keel,

So dies in human hearts the thought of death.

E'en with the tender tear which Nature sheds

O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.

Can I forget Philander? That were strange.

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O my full heart!—But should I give it vent,

The longest night, though longer far, would fail,

And the lark listen to my midnight song.

The sprightly lark's shrill matin wakes the morn;

Griefs sharpest thorn hard pressing on my breast,

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I strive, with wakeful melody, to cheer

The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel! like thee,

And call the stars to listen: every star

Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay.

Yet be not vain; there are who thine excel,

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And charm through distant ages. Wrapt in shade,

Prisoner of darkness! to the silent hours,

How often I repeat their rage divine,

To lull my griefs, and steal my heart from woe!

I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire;

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Dark, though not blind, like thee, Maeonides!

Or, Milton, thee! Ah! could I reach your strain!

Or his who made Maeonides our own!

Man, too, he sung: immortal man I sing:

Oft bursts my song beyond the bounds of life;

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What now but immortality can please?

O had he press'd his theme, pursued the track

Which opens out of darkness into day;

O had he mounted on his wing of fire,

Soar'd where I sink, and sung immortal man;

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How had it bless'd mankind, and rescued me!