_By T. Moore, Esq._
The following is described by Alciphron, the hero of the tale, at the
termination of a festival, in a tone which strongly reminds us of
Rasselas:--
"The sounds of the song and dance had ceased, and I was now left in
those luxurious gardens alone. Though so ardent and active a votary of
pleasure, I had, by nature, a disposition full of melancholy;--an
imagination that presented sad thoughts even in the midst of mirth and
happiness, and threw the shadow of the future over the gayest illusions
of the present. Melancholy was, indeed, twin-born in my soul with
passion; and, not even in the fullest fervour of the latter were they
separated. From the first moment that I was conscious of thought and
feeling, the same dark thread had run across the web; and images of
death and annihilation mingled themselves with the most smiling scenes
through which my career of enjoyment led me. My very passion for
pleasure but deepened these gloomy fancies. For, shut out, as I was by
my creed, from a future life, and having no hope beyond the narrow
horizon of this, every minute of delight assumed a mournful preciousness
in my eyes, and pleasure, like the flower of the cemetery, grew but more
luxuriant from the neighbourhood of death. This very night my triumph,
my happiness, had seemed complete. I had been the presiding genius of
that voluptuous scene. Both my ambition and my love of pleasure had
drunk deep of the cup for which they thirsted. Looked up to by the
learned, and loved by the beautiful and the young, I had seen, in every
eye that met mine, either the acknowledgment of triumphs already won, or
the promise of others, still brighter, that awaited me. Yet, even in the
midst of all this, the same dark thoughts had presented themselves; the
perishableness of myself and all around me every instant recurred to my
mind. Those hands I had prest--those eyes, in which I had seen sparkling
a spirit of light and life that should never die--those voices that had
talked of eternal love--all, all, I felt, were but a mockery of the
moment, and would leave nothing eternal but the silence of their dust!
"Oh, were it not for this sad voice,
Stealing amid our mirth to say,
That all in which we most rejoice,
Ere night may be the earth-worm's prey:
_But_ for this bitter--only this--
Full as the world is brimm'd with bliss,
And capable as feels my soul
Of draining to its depth the whole,
I should turn earth to heaven, and be,
If bliss made gods, a deity!"
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