Composed at Midnight

From broken visions of perturbed rest

I wake, and start, and fear to sleep again.

How total a privation of all sounds,

Sight, and familiar objects, man, bird, beast,

Herb, tree, or flower, and prodigal light of heaven.

Twere some relief to catch the drowsy cry

Of the mechanic watchman, or the noise

Of revel reeling home from midnight cups.

Those are the moanings of the dying man,

Who lies in the upper chamber; restless moans.

And interrupted only by a cough

Consumptive, torturing the wasted lungs.

So in the bitterness of death he lies,

And waits in anguish for the mornings light.

What can that do for him, or what restore?

Short taste, faint sense, affecting notices,

And little images of pleasures past,

Of health, and active life--health not yet slain,

Nor the other grace of life, a good name, sold

For sins black wages. On his tedious bed

He writhes, and turns him from the accusing light,

And finds no comfort in the sun, but says

"When night comes I shall get a little rest."

Some few groans, more, death comes, and there an end.

Tis darkness and conjecture all beyond;

Weak Nature fears, though Charity must hope,

And Fancy, most licentious on such themes

Where decent reverence will had kept her mute,

Hath oer-stockd hell with devils, and brought down,

By her enormous fablings and mad lies,

Discredit on the gospels serious truths

And salutary fears. The man of parts,

Poet, or prose declaimer, on his couch

Lolling, like one indifferent, fabricates

A heave of gold, where he, and such as he,

Their heads encompassed with crowns, their heels

With fine wings garlanded, shall tread the stars

Beneath their feet, heavens pavement, far removed

From damned spirits, and the torturing cries

Of men, his brethren, fashiond of the earth,

As he was nourishd with the self-same bread,

Belike his kindred or companions once--

Through everlasting ages now divorced,

In chains and savage torments to repent

Short years of folly on earth. Their groans unheard

In heavn, the saint nor pity feels, nor care,

For those thus sentenced--pity might disturb

The delicate sense and most divine repose

Of spirits angelical. Blessed be God,

The measure of His judgments is not fixd

By mans erroneous standard. He discerns

No such inordinate difference and vast

Betwixt the sinner and the saint, to doom

Such disproportiond fates. Compared with Him,

No man on earth is holy calld: they best

Stand in His sight approved, who at His feet

Their little crowns of virtue cast, and yield

To Him of His won works the praise, His due.