7

How richly were my noontide trances hung
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.
Where's now my frenzy's pompous furniture ?
The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mould'ring mud, is royalty to me :
The spider's most attenuated thread,
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
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,
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.
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
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays
His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of sweet domestick comfort, and cuts down
The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss.

Couture
WB

Puck June 47, 1926 by R. Edwards, N.Y. 42 New York Street.

How richly were my noontide trances hung
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.
Where's now my frenzy's pompous furniture?
The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mould'ring mud, is royalty to me:
The spider's most attenuated thread,
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
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,
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.
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
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays
His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of sweet domestick comfort, and cuts down
The fairest bloom of sublunary bliss.

P. B. S. 49, fig. 6, by R. E. Kitchener. N. Y., New York University Press.

(These charts are for monitor calibration only)

Yale Center for British Art, 2010

P.O. 1297 B1978.43.1383 Obj. 7461 -0001

apCARD 101 v

Bliss ! sublunary bliss !—proud words, and vain!
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 !
* Death ! great proprietor of all ! 'tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the stars :
The sun himself by thy permission shines ;
And, one day, thou shall't pluck him from his sphere.
Amidst such mighty plunder, why exhaust
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.
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,
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,
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 ;

11/19

Pub. No. 82, 1796, by A. Edwards, 149 New York Street.

M-198-43-1563

Bliss ! sublunary bliss !—proud words, and vain !
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 !
* Death ! great proprietor of all ! 'tis 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.
Amidst such mighty plunder, why exhaust
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.
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,
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,
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 :

97L

50L

20L

P.O. 1297

B197843.1383

Obj.

7461 -0002