Thomas Parnell

Thomas Parnell Poems

By the blue taper's trembling light,
No more I waste the wakeful night,
Intent with endless view to pore
The schoolmen and the sages o'er:
...

Look mercyfully down O Lord
& wash us from our sinn
Cleanse us from wicked deeds without
from wicked thoughts within
...

Far in a wild, unknown to public view,
From youth to age a rev'rend hermit grew;
The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well:
...

A Beavy of the fair & Gay,
Such as are daily Smoakt in tea,
& toasted over wine,
Vext to be made so long the Jeast
...

Lovely, lasting peace of mind!
Sweet delight of human-kind!
Heavenly-born, and bred on high,
To crown the fav'rites of the sky
...

Beauty rests not in one fix'd Place,
But seems to reign in every Face;
'Tis nothing sure, but Fancy then,
In various Forms bewitching Men;
...

The beam-repelling mists arise,
And evening spreads obscurer skies;
The twilight will the night forerun,
And night itself be soon begun.
...

See the star that leads the day
Rising shoots a golden ray,
To make the shades of darkness go
From heaven above and earth below;
...

Thou soft Engager of my tender years
Divertive verse now come & ease my cares
The Rake has wine the aged knave ye view
...

Gays gon out early, how comes it to pass?
Not that he has buisness, but thinks that he has
...

He. When first my Biddy love profest
My rapture ran so high
Not Gentle S---s fondly prest
To beautious G---s panting breast
...

The sun is swiftly mounted high;
It glitters in the southern sky;
Its beams with force and glory beat,
And fruitful earth is fill'd with heat.
...

As Pope who gathers mony to translate
With Gay the Shepheard Writer mett of late.
Says Pope, your Ecclogues wont come out wth speed
...

Upon a Bed of humble clay
In all her Garments loose
A Prostitute my Mother lay
To ev'ry Comer's use.
...

15.

When thy beauty appears
In its graces and airs
All bright as an angel new dropp'd from the sky,
At distance I gaze and am awed by my fears:
...

In the st season of the infant earth
When all from Chaos took their orderd birth
When mankind from the hand of heaven came
...

17.

Thyrsis, a young and am'rous Swain,
Saw two, the Beauties of the Plain;
Who both his Heart subdue:
Gay Cælia's Eyes were dazzling fair,
...

Propitious Son of God to thee
With all my soul I bend my knee,
My wish I send my want impart,
And dedicate my mind and heart,
...

Now Front to Front the marching Armies shine,
Halt e'er they meet, and form the length'ning Line,
The Chiefs conspicuous seen, and heard afar,
...

A thoughtful Being, long and spare,
Our Race of Mortals call him Care:
(Were Homer living, well he knew
What Name the Gods have call'd him too)
...

Thomas Parnell Biography

Thomas Parnell is more remembered for the fact that Johnson wrote his biography than for his poetry, which was published by Pope after his death. Parnell was born in Dublin in 1679 to a man of commonwealth, also by the name of Thomas Parnell. At the age of fourteen, he entered Trinity College of Dublin, and at the age of twenty became deacon in the Episcopal church. Being promoted to archdeacon, in 1706 he married the daughter of Thomas Minchin of Tipperary. Five years later, she died. Around this time, he became more deeply attached to the Scribblerus circle. He wrote the introduction to Pope's Iliad. In 1718, just two years after being presented the vicarage of Finglass, he died on the way to Ireland (presumably of heavy drink). The only poems published during his lifetime were in periodicals. After his death, his friends published some of his best poems and wrote his elgy. His biography is in the famous Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets.)

The Best Poem Of Thomas Parnell

A Night-Piece On Death

By the blue taper's trembling light,
No more I waste the wakeful night,
Intent with endless view to pore
The schoolmen and the sages o'er:
Their books from wisdom widely stray,
Or point at best the longest way.
I'll seek a readier path, and go
Where wisdom's surely taught below.

How deep yon azure dyes the sky!
Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,
While through their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide!
The slumb'ring breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.
The grounds which on the right aspire,
In dimness from the view retire:
The left presents a place of graves,
Whose wall the silent water laves.
That steeple guides thy doubtful sight
Among the livid gleams of night.
There pass with melancholy state,
By all the solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as softly-sad you tread
Above the venerable dead,
"Time was, like thee they life possest,
And time shall be, that thou shalt rest."

Those graves, with bending osier bound,
That nameless heave the crumpled ground,
Quick to the glancing thought disclose,
Where toil and poverty repose.

The flat smooth stones that bear a name,
The chisel's slender help to fame,
(Which ere our set of friends decay
Their frequent steps may wear away,)
A middle race of mortals own,
Men, half ambitious, all unknown.

The marble tombs that rise on high,
Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,
Whose pillars swell with sculptur'd stones,
Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones,
These (all the poor remains of state)
Adorn the rich, or praise the great;
Who, while on earth in fame they live,
Are senseless of the fame they give.

Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades,
The bursting earth unveils the shades!
All slow, and wan, and wrapp'd with shrouds
They rise in visionary crowds,
And all with sober accent cry,
"Think, mortal, what it is to die."

Now from yon black and fun'ral yew,
That bathes the charnel-house with dew,
Methinks I hear a voice begin;
(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din;
Ye tolling clocks, no time resound
O'er the long lake and midnight ground)
It sends a peal of hollow groans,
Thus speaking from among the bones.

"When men my scythe and darts supply,
How great a king of fears am I!
They view me like the last of things:
They make, and then they dread, my stings.
Fools! if you less provok'd your fears,
No more my spectre form appears.
Death's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God;
A port of calms, a state of ease
From the rough rage of swelling seas.

"Why then thy flowing sable stoles,
Deep pendant cypress, mourning poles,
Loose scarfs to fall athwart thy weeds,
Long palls, drawn hearses, cover'd steeds,
And plumes of black, that, as they tread,
Nod o'er the scutcheons of the dead?

"Nor can the parted body know,
Nor wants the soul, these forms of woe.
As men who long in prison dwell,
With lamps that glimmer round the cell,
Whene'er their suff'ring years are run,
Spring forth to greet the glitt'ring sun:
Such joy though far transcending sense,
Have pious souls at parting hence.
On earth, and in the body plac'd,
A few, and evil years they waste;
But when their chains are cast aside,
See the glad scene unfolding wide,
Clap the glad wing, and tow'r away,
And mingle with the blaze of day."

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