Their smiles the great, and the coquette, throw out
For others' hearts, tenacious of their own;
And we no less of ours, when such the bait.
Ye Fortune's cofferers! ye powers of Wealth!
Can gold gain friendship? impudence of hope!
As well mere man an angel might beget.
Love, and love only, is the loan for love.
Lorenzo! pride repress, nor hope to find
A friend, but what has found a friend in thee:
All like the purchase, few the price will pay;
And this makes friends such miracles below.
What if (since daring on so nice a theme)
I show thee friendship delicate as dear,
Of tender violations apt to die?
Reserve will wound it, and distrust destroy.
Deliberate on all things with thy friend:
But since friends grow not thick on every bough,
Nor friend unrotten at the core,
every
First on thy friend deliberate with thyself;
Pause, ponder, sift; not eager in the choice,
Nor jealous of the chosen: fixing, fix;
Judge before friendship, then confide till death.
Well for thy friend, but nobler far for thee.
How gallant danger for earth's highest prize!
A friend is worth all hazards we can run.
'Poor is the friendless master of a world:
A world in purchase for a friend is gain.'
So sung he (angels hear that angel sing!
Angels from friendship gather half their joy)
Philander, as his friend went round
In the rich ichor, in the generous blood
Of Bacchus, purple god of joyous wit,
A brow solute, and ever-laughing eye.
He drank long health and virtue to his friend;
His friend! who warm'd him more, who more
Friendship's the wine of life; but friendship new
(Not such was his) is neither strong nor pure.
O! for the bright complexion, cordial warmth,
And elevating spirit of a friend,
For twenty summers ripening by my side;
All feculence of falsehood long thrown down,
All social virtues rising in his soul,
As crystal clear, and smiling as they rise!
Here nectar flows; it sparkles in our sight:
Rich to the taste, and genuine from the heart.
High-flavour'd bliss for gods! on earth how rare!
On earth how lost!-Philander is no more.
Think'st thou the theme intoxicates my song Am I too warm?-Too warm I cannot be. I loved him much, but now I love him more. Like birds, whose beauties languish, half conceal'd, Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes Expanded, shine with azure, green, and gold; How blessings brighten as they take their flight! His flight Philander took, his upward flight, If ever soul ascended. Had he dropp'd, (That eagle genius!) O had he let fall One feather as he flew, I then had wrote What friends might flatter, prudent foes forbear, Rivals scarce damn, and Zoilus reprieve. Yet what I can I must: it were profane To quench a glory lighted at the skies, And cast in shadows his illustrious close. Strange! the theme most affecting, most sublime, Momentous most to man, should sleep unsung! And yet it sleeps, by genius unawaked, Painim or Christian, to the blush of Wit.
Man's highest triumph, man's profoundest fall,
The death-bed of the just! is yet undrawn
By mortal hand; it merits a divine:
Angels should paint it, angels ever there,
There on a post of honour and of joy.
Dare I presume, then? but Philander bids,
And glory tempts, and inclination calls.
Yet am I struck, as struck the soul beneath
Aerial groves' impenetrable gloom,
Or in some mighty ruin's solemn shade,
Or gazing, by pale lamps, on high-born dust
In vaults, thin courts of poor unflatter'd kings,
Or at the midnight altar's hallow'd flame.
It is religion to proceed: I pause-
And enter, awed, the temple of my theme.
Is it his death-bed? No; it is his shrine:
Behold him there just rising to a god.
The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of Heaven.
Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance
That threw in this Bethesda your disease:
If unrestored by this, despair your cure ;
For here resistless Demonstration dwells.
A death-bed's a detector of the heart!
Here tired Dissimulation drops her mask,
Through Life's grimace that mistress of the scene!
Here real and apparent are the same.
You see the man, you see his hold on Heaven,
If sound his virtue, as Philander's sound.
Heaven waits not the last moment; owns her friends
On this side death, and points them out to men;
A lecture silent, but of sovereign power!
To Vice confusion, and to Virtue peace.
Whatever farce the boastful hero plays,
Virtue alone has majesty in death;
And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns.
Philander! he severely frown'd on thee.
'No warning given! unceremonious fate!
A sudden rush from life's meridian joys!
A wrench from all we love! from all we are!
A restless bed of pain! a plunge opaque
Beyond conjecture! feeble Nature's dread!
Strong Reason's shudder at the dark unknown!
A sun extinguish'd! a just-opening grave!
And, oh! the last, last; what? (can words express,
Thought reach it?) the last-silence of a friend!'
Where are those horrors, that amazement, where
This hideous group of ills which singly shock?
Demand from man-I thought him man, till now.
Through Nature's wreck, through vanquish'd
. agonies,
[gloom) (Like the stars struggling through this midnight What gleams of joy! what more than human peace! Where the frail mortal, the poor abject worm? No, not in death the mortal to be found. His conduct is a legacy for all,
Richer than Mammon's for his single heir.
His comforters he comforts; great in ruin,
With unreluctant grandeur gives, not yields
His soul sublime, and closes with his fate.
How our hearts burn'd within us at the scene! Whence this brave bound o'er limits fix'd to man? His God sustains him in his final hour!
His final hour brings glory to his God!
Man's glory Heaven vouchsafes to call her own. We gaze, we weep; mix'd tears of grief and joy! Amazement strikes: devotion bursts to flame: Christians adore! and infidels believe!
As some tall tower, or lofty mountain's brow, Detains the Sun, illustrious, from its height, While rising vapours and descending shades, With damps and darkness, drown the spacious vale; Undamp'd by doubt, undarken'd by despair, Philander thus augustly rears his head,
At that black hour which general horror sheds
On the low level of the' inglorious throng:
Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and humble joy,
Divinely beam on his exalted soul;
Destruction gild, and crown him for the skies,
With incommunicable lustre bright.
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