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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 lov'd him much; but now I love him more.
Like birds, whose beauties languish, half conceal'd,
Till, mounted on their 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!) 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 alter'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 priviledged 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 unrestor❜d 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 joy!
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 extinguished! 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)
Demands from man-I thought him man till now.
Through nature's wreck, through vanish'd agonies
(Like the stars struggling through this midnight gloom,)
What gleams of joy! what more than human peace!
Where the frail mortal? the poor abjeet 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.

NIGHT THE THIRD.

NARCISSA.

TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF P

Ignoscenda quidem, scir ent si ignoscere manes.

-Virgil.

FROM dreams, where thought in fancy's maze runs mad,
To reason, that heaven-lighted lamp in man,
Once more I wake; and at the destined hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn,

I keep my assignation with my woe.

lost to virtue, lost to manly thought,

Lost to the noble sallies of the soul !

Who think it solitude to be alone.

Communion sweet! communion large and high!
Our reason, guardian angel, and our God!
Then nearest these, when others most remote ;
And all, ere long, shall be remote, but these.
How dreadful, then, to meet them all alone,
A stranger! unacknowledged! unapproved!

Now woo them; wed them; bind them to thy breast;
To win thy wish, creation has no more.

Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend.-

But friends, how mortal! dangerous the desire.
Take PHOEBUs to yourselves, ye basking bards!
Inebriate at fair fortune's fountain-head;

And reeling through the wilderness of joy;

Where sense runs savage, broke from reason's chain,
And sings false peace, till smother'd by the pall.
My fortune is unlike; unlike my song;

Unlike the deity my song invokes.

I to Day's soft-eyed sister pay my court,
(ENDYMION's rival!) and her aid implore;
Now first implored in succour to the muse.

Thou, who didst lately borrow* CYNTHIA's form,

*At the Duke of Norfolk's masquerade.

And modestly forego thine own! O thou,
Who didst thyself, at midnight hours, inspire!
Say, why not CYNTHIA patroness of song?
As thou her crescent, she thy character,
Assuthes; still more a goddess by the change.
Are there demurring wits, who dare dispute
This revolution in the world inspired?
Ye train Pierian! to the lunar sphere,
In silent hour, address your ardent call
For aid immortal: less her brother's right.
She, with the spheres harmonious, nightly leads
The mazy dance, and hears their matchless strain;
A strain for gods, denied to mortal ear.

Transmit it heard, thou silver queen of Heaven!
What title, or what name, endears thee most?
CYNTHIA CYLLENE! PHOEBE!-or dost hear,
With higher gust, fair PD of the skies!
Is that the soft enchantment calls thee down,
More powerful than of old Circean charm?
Come; but from heavenly banquets with thee bring
The soul of song, and whisper in mine ear
The theft divine; or in propitious dreams
(For dreams are thine) transfuse it through the breast
Of thy first votary-but not thy last;
If, like thy namesake, thou art ever kind.
And kind thou wilt be; kind on such a theme ;
A theme so like thee, a quite lunar theme,
Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair!

A theme that rose all pale, and told my soul
'Twas night; on her fond hopes perpetual night;
A night which struck a damp, a deadlier damp,
Than that which smote me from PHILANDER's tomb.
NARCISSA follows, ere his tomb is closed.

Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes;
They love a train&tread each other's heel :
Her death invades his mournful right, and claims
The grief that started from my lids for him;
Seizes the faithless, alienated tear;

Or shares it, ere it falls. So frequent death,
Sorrow he more than causes, he confounds;
For human sighs his rival strokes contend,
And make distress distraction. O PHILANDER!
What was thy fate! A double fate to me;
Portent, and pain! a menace, and a blow!
Like the black raven hovering o'er my peace;
Not less a bird of omen, than of prey.
It call'd NARCISSA long before her hour;
It call'd her tender soul, by break of bliss,
From the first blossom, from the buds of joy;
Those few our noxious fate unblasted leaves
In this inclement clime of human life.

Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if aught happy here) as good! ·
For fortune fond had built her nest on high.
Like birds quite exquisite of note and plume,
Transfix'd by fate (who loves a lofty mark,)
How from the summit of the groves he fell,
And left it unharmonious! all its charms
Extinguish'd in the wonders of her song!
Her song still vibrates in my ravish'd ear,
Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain
(Oh to forget her!) thrilling through my heart!
Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy, this group
Of bright ideas, flowers of paradise,

As yet unforfeit! in one blaze we bind,
Kneel, and present it to the skies! as all

We guess of Heaven: and these were all her own.
And she was mine; and I was-was!-most bless'd-
Gay title of the deepest misery!

As bodies grow more ponderous, robb'd of life:
Good lost weighs more in grief, than gain'd, in joy.
Like blossom'd trees o'erturn'd by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay:
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there ;
Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.
And will not the severe excuse a sigh?
Scorn the proud man that is ashamed to weep!
Our tears indulged indeed deserve our shame.
He that e'er lost an angel! pity me.

Soon as the lustre languish'd in her eye,
Dawning a dimmer day on human sight;
And on her cheek, the residence of spring,"
Pale omen sat; and scatter'd fears around
On all that saw (and who would cease to gaze,
That once had seen?) With haste, parental haste
I flew, I snatch'd her from the rigid north,
Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew,
And bore her nearer to the sun; the sun
(As if the sun could envy) check'd his beam,
Denied his wonted succour; nor with more
Regret behold her drooping, than the bells
Of lilies; fairest lilies, not so fair!

Queen lilies! and ye painted populace!
Why dwell in fields, and lead ambrosial lives ;
In morn and evening dew your beauties bathe,

And drink the sun; which gives your cheeks to glow, And out-blush (mine excepted) every fair;

You gladlier grew, ambitious of her hand.

Which often cropp'd your odours, incense meet