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Speech, thought's canal! speech, thought's criterion | The wise extract Earth's most Hyblean bliss,

too!

Thought, in the mine, may come forth gold, or dross;
When coin'd in word, we know its real worth.
If sterling, store it for thy future use:
'T will buy thee benefit; perhaps renown.
Thought, too, deliver'd, is the more possest;
Teaching, we learn; and, giving, we retain
The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot.
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire;
Speech burnishes our mental magazine;
Brightens, for ornament; and whets, for use.
What numbers, sheath'd in erudition, lie,
Plung'd to the hilts in venerable tomes,

And rusted in; who might have borne an edge,
And play'd a sprightly beam, if born to speech;
If born blest heirs of half their mother's tongue!
'Tis thought's exchange, which, like th' alternate
push

Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum,
And defecates the student's standing pool.

In contemplation is his proud resource?
'T is poor, as proud, by converse unsustain'd.
Rude thought runs wild in contemplation's field;
Converse, the menage, breaks it to the bitt
Of due restraint; and emulation's spur
Gives graceful energy, by rivals aw'd.
'Tis converse qualifies for solitude;
As exercise, for salutary rest.

By that untutor'd, Contemplation raves;
And Nature's fool, by Wisdom is undone.

Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines,
And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive,
What is she, but the means of happiness?
That unobtain'd, than folly more a fool;
A melancholy fool, without her bells.
Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives
The precious end, which makes our wisdom wise.
Nature, in zeal for human amity,
Denies, or damps, an undivided joy.
Joy is an import; joy is an exchange;
Joy flies monopolists: it calls for two;

Rich fruit! Heaven-planted! never pluckt by one.
Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give
To social man true relish of himself.
Full on ourselves, descending in a line,
Pleasure's bright beam is feeble in delight:
Delight intense is taken by rebound;
Reverberated pleasures fire the breast.

Celestial Happiness, whene'er she stoops
To visit Earth, one shrine the goddess finds,
And one alone, to make her sweet amends
For absent Heaven the bosom of a friend;
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft,
Each other's pillow to repose divine.
Beware the counterfeit ; in passion's flame
Hearts melt, but melt like ice, soon harder froze.
True love strikes root in reason; passion's foe:
Virtue alone entenders us for life:

I wrong her much - entenders us for ever:
Of Friendship's fairest fruits, the fruit most fair
Is virtue kindling at a rival fire,
And, emulously, rapid in her race.
O the soft enmity! endearing strife!
This carries friendship to her noon-tide point,
And gives the rivet of eternity.
[themes,
From Friendship, which outlives my former
Glorious survivor of old Time and Death;
From Friendship, thus, that flower of heavenly seed;

Superior wisdom, crown'd with smiling joy.
But for whom blossoms this Elysian flower?
Abroad they find, who cherish it at home.
Lorenzo! pardon what my love extorts,
An honest love, and not afraid to frown.
Though choice of follies fasten on the great,
None clings more obstinate than fancy, fond,
That sacred Friendship is their easy prey;
Caught by the wafture of a golden lure,
Or fascination of a high-born smile.

Their smiles, the great, and the coquet, 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 in all things with thy friend.

But since friends grow not thick on every bough,
Nor every friend unrotten at the core;
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 angels sing!
Angels from friendship gather half their joy,)
So sung 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 in-
spir'd.

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 lov'd 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 dropt,
(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 unawak'd,
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.
Is it religion to proceed? I pause
And enter, aw'd, 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 privileg'd 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 tir'd 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!

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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 extinguisht! 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 horrours, 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 vanquisht
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 burnt within us at the scene!
Whence this brave bound o'er limits fixt 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; mixt tears of grief, of 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;
Undampt by doubt, undarken'd by despair,
Philander, thus, augustly rears his head,

At that black hour, which general horrour sheds
On the low level of th' 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 PORTLAND.

Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.

VIRG.

FROM dreams, where thought in fancy's maze runs

mad,

Το reason, that heaven-lighted lamp in man,
Once more I wake; and at the destin'd hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn,

I keep my assignation with my woe.

O! 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! unacknowledg'd! unapprov'd! 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-ey'd sister pay my court, (Endymion's rival!) and her aid implore; Now first implor'd in succour to the Muse.

Thou, who didst lately borrow Cynthia's form 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 Assumes; still more a goddess by the change. Are there demurring wits, who dare dispute *At the Duke of Norfolk's masquerade. N n

This revolution in the world inspir'd?
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 the most!
Cynthia! Cyllené! Phoebe! or dost hear
With higher gust, fair Portland 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 my ear
The theft divine; or in propitious dreams [breast
(For dreams are thine) transfuse it through the
Of thy first votary. But not thy last;
If, like thy namesake, thou art ever kind.

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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
'T was 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 clos'd.
Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes;
They love a train, they 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. Oh 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,
Transfixt by fate (who loves a lofty mark),
How from the summit of the grove she fell,
And left it unharmonious! All its charms
Extinguisht in the wonders of her song!
Her song still vibrates in my ravish'd ear,
Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain
(0 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- -most
blest-

Gay title of the deepest misery!

was!

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 asham'd to weep;
Our tears indulg'd indeed deserve our shame.
Ye 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,
Deny'd his wonted succour; nor with more
Regret beheld her drooping, than the bells
Of lilies; fairest lilies, not so fair!

Queen lilies! and ye painted populace!
Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrosial lives!
In morn and evening dew, your beauties bathe,
And drink the Sun; which gives your checks to
glow,

And out-blush (mine excepted) every fair;
You gladlier grew, ambitious of her hand,
Which often cropt your odours, incense meet
To thought so pure! Ye lovely fugitives!
Coeval race with man! for man you smile!
Why not smile at him too? You share indeed
His sudden pass; but not his constant pain.

So man is made; nought ministers delight,
But what his glowing passions can engage;
And glowing passions, bent on aught below,
Must, soon or late, with anguish turn the scale;
And anguish, after rapture, how severe !
Rapture? Bold man! who.tempt'st the wrath
divine,

By plucking fruit denied to mortal taste,
While here, presuming on the rights of Heaven.
For transport dost thou call on every hour,
Lorenzo? At thy friend's expense, be wise;
Lean not on Earth; 't will pierce thee to the heart;
A broken reed, at best; but oft, a spear;
On its sharp point peace bleeds, and hope expires.
Turn, hopeless thought! turn from her:-
Thought repell'd

Resenting rallies, and wakes every woe.
Snatch'd ere thy prime! and in thy bridal hour!
And when kind fortune, with thy lover, smil'd!
And when high-flavour'd thy fresh opening joys!
And when blind man pronounc'd thy bliss complete!
And on a foreign shore; where strangers wept!
Strangers to thee; and more surprising still,
Strangers to kindness, wept: their eyes let fall
Inhuman tears! strange tears! that trickled down
From marble hearts! obdurate tenderness!
A tenderness that call'd them more severe;
In spite of Nature's soft persuasion, steel'd!
While Nature melted, Superstition rav'd;
That mourn'd the dead; and this denied a grave,
Their sighs incens'd; sighs foreign to the will!
Their will the tiger suck'd, outrag'd the storm.
For, oh! the curst ungodliness of zeal!
While sinful flesh relented, spirit nurst
In blind Infallibility's embrace,
The sainted spirit petrify'd the breast;
Denied the charity of dust, to spread
O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy.
What could I do? What succour? What resource?

With pious sacrilege, a grave I stole ;
With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd;
Short in my duty! coward in my grief!
More like her murderer, than friend, I crept,
With soft-suspended step, and muffled deep
In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh.
I whisper'd what should echo through their realms;
Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the
skies.

Presumptuous fear! How durst I dread her foes,
While Nature's loudest dictates I obey'd?
Pardon necessity, blest shade! Of grief
And indignation rival bursts I pour'd;
Half execration mingled with my prayer;
Kindled at man, while I his God ador'd;
Sore grudg'd the savage land her sacred dust;
Stampt the curst soil; and with humanity
(Denied Narcissa) wish'd them all a grave.

Glows my resentment into guilt? What guilt
Can equal violations of the dead?

The dead how sacred! Sacred is the dust
Of this Heaven-labour'd form, erect, divine!
This Heaven-assum'd majestic robe of Earth,
He deign'd to wear, who hung the vast expanse
With azure bright, and cloth'd the Sun in gold.
When every passion sleeps that can offend;
When strikes us every motive that can melt;
When man can wreak his rancour uncontrol'd,
That strongest curb on insult and ill-will;
Then, spleen to dust! the dust of innocence !
An angel's dust! - This Lucifer transcends;
When he contended for the patriarch's bones,
'T was not the strife of malice, but of pride;
The strife of pontiff pride, not pontiff gall.

For less than this is shocking in a race
Most wretched, but from streams of mutual love;
And uncreated, but for love divine,
And, but for love divine, this moment lost,
By fate resorb'd, and sunk in endless night.
Man hard of heart to man! of horrid things
Most horrid! 'Mid stupendous, highly strange!
Yet oft his courtesies are smoother wrongs;
Pride brandishes the favours he confers,
And contumelious his humanity;
What then his vengeance? Hear it not, ye stars!
And thou, pale Moon! turn paler at the sound;
Man is to man the sorest, surest ill.

A previous blast foretels the rising storm;
O'erwhelming turrets threaten ere they fall;
Volcanoes bellow ere they disembogue;
Earth trembles ere her yawning jaws devour;
And smoke betrays the wide-consuming fire:
Ruin from man is most conceal'd when near,
And sends the dreadful tidings in the blow.
Is this the flight of fancy? Would it were!
Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings, but himself,
That hideous sight, a naked human heart.

Fir'd is the Muse? And let the Muse be fir'd:
Who not inflam'd, when what he speaks, he feels,
And in the nerve most tender, in his friends?
Share to mankind! Philander had his foes:
He felt the truths I sing, and I in him.
But he, nor I, feel more; past ills, Narcissa!
Are sunk in thee, thou recent wound of heart!
Which bleeds with other cares, with other pangs;
Pangs numerous, as the numerous ills that swarm'd
Der thy distinguish'd fate, and, clustering there
Thick as the locusts on the land of Nile,

Made death more deadly, and more dark the grave. Reflect (if not forgot my touching tale)

How was each circumstance with aspics arm'd?
An aspic, each! and all, an hydra woe:
What strong Herculean virtue could suffice? -
Or is it virtue to be conquer'd here?
This hoary cheek a train of tears bedews;
And each tear mourns its own distinct distress ;
And each distress, distinctly mourn'd, demands
Of grief still more, as heighten'd by the whole.
A grief like this proprietors excludes:
Not friends alone such obsequies deplore;
They make mankind the mourner; carry sighs
Far as the fatal Fame can wing her way;
And turn the gayest thought of gayest age,
Down their right channel, through the vale of death.
The vale of death! that hush'd Cimmerian vale,
Where darkness, brooding o'er unfinish'd fates,
With raven wing incumbent, waits the day
(Dread day!) that interdicts all future change!
That subterranean world! that land of ruin!
Fit walk, Lorenzo, for proud human thought!
There let my thought expatiate, and explore
Balsamic truths and healing sentiments,
Of all most wanted, and most welcome, here.
For gay Lorenzo's sake, and for thy own,
My soul!" The fruits of dying friends survey;
Expose the vain of life; weigh life and death;
Give death his eulogy; thy fear subdue;
And labour that first palm of noble minds,
A manly scorn of terrour from the tomb."

This harvest reap from thy Narcissa's grave.
As poets feign'd from Ajax' streaming blood
Arose, with grief inscrib'd, a mournful flower;
Let wisdom blossom from my mortal wound.
And first, of dying friends; what fruit from these
It brings us more than triple aid; an aid
To chase our thoughtlessness, fear, pride, and guilt.
Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud,
To damp our brainless ardours; and abate
That glare of life which often blinds the wise.
Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth
Our rugged pass to death; to break those bars
Of terrour and abhorrence Nature throws
Cross our obstructed way; and, thus to make
Welcome, as safe, our port from every storm.
Each friend by fate snatch'd from us, is a plume
Pluck'd from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us stoop from our aërial heights,
And, dampt with omen of our own decease,
On drooping pinions of ambition lower'd,
Just skim Earth's surface, ere we break it up,
O'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust,
And save the world a nuisance. Smitten friends
Are angels sent on errands full of love;
For us they languish, and for us they die :
And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain?
Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hovering shades,
Which wait the revolution in our hearts?
Shall we disdain their silent, soft address;
Their posthumous advice, and pious prayer?
Senseless, as herds that graze their hallow'd graves,
Tread under foot their agonies and groans;
Frustrate their anguish, and destroy their deaths?
Lorenzo! no; the thought of death indulge;
Give it its wholesome empire! let it reign,
That kind chastiser of thy soul in joy!
Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far,
And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast:
Auspicious era! golden days, begin!
The thought of death shall, like a god, inspire.
Is life the theme
And why not think on death?

Of every thought? and wish of every hour?
And song of every joy? Surprising truth!
The beaten spaniel's fondness not so strange.
To wave the numerous ills that seize on life
As their own property, their lawful prey;
Ere man has measur'd half his weary stage,
His luxuries have left him no reserve,
No maiden relishes, unbroach'd delights;
On cold-serv'd repetitions he subsists,
And in the tasteless present chews the past;
Disgusted chews, and scarce can swallow down.
Like lavish ancestors, his earlier years
Have disinherited his future hours,

Which starve on arts, and glean their former field.
Live ever here, Lorenzo!-shocking thought!
So shocking, they who wish, disown it, too;
Disown from shame, what they from folly crave.
Live ever in the womb, nor see the light?
For what live ever here? - With labouring step
To tread our former footsteps? Pace the round
Eternal? To climb life's worn, heavy wheel,
Which draws up nothing new? To beat, and beat
The beaten track? To bid each wretched day
The former mock? To surfeit on the same,
And yawn our joys? Or thank a misery
For change, though sad? To see what we have seen?
Hear, till unheard, the same old slabber'd tale?
To taste the tasted, and at each return
Less tasteful? O'er our palates to decant
Another vintage? Strain a fatter year,
Through loaded vessels, and a laxer tone?
Crazy machines to grind Earth's wasted fruits!
Ill-ground, and worse-concocted! Load, not life!
The rational foul kennels of excess!
Still-streaming thoroughfares of dull debauch!
Trembling each gulp, lest death should snatch the
bowl.

Such of our fine-ones is the wish refin' So would they have it: elegant desire! Why not invite the bellowing stalls, and wilds? But such examples might their riot awe. Through want of virtue, that is, want of thought, (Though on bright thought they father all their flights,)

To what are they reduc'd? To love, and hate
The same vain world; to censure, and espouse,
This painted shrew of life, who calls them fool
Each moment of each day; to flatter bad
Through dread of worse; to cling to this rude rock,
Barren, to them, of good, and sharp with ills,
And hourly blacken'd with impending storms,
And infamous for wrecks of human hope-
Scar'd at the gloomy gulf, that yawns beneath.
Such are their triumphs! such their pangs of joy!
"T is time, high time, to shift this dismal scene.
This hugg'd, this hideous state, what art can cure?
One only; but that one, what all may reach;
Virtue - she, wonder-working goddess! charms
That rock to bloom; and tames the painted shrew;
And, what will more surprise, Lorenzo! gives
To life's sick, nauseous iteration, change;
And straitens Nature's circle to a line.
Believ'st thou this, Lorenzo? lend an ear,
A patient ear, thou 'It blush to disbelieve.
A languid, leaden, iteration reigns,
And ever must, o'er those, whose joys are joys
Of sight, smell, taste: the cuckow-seasons sing
The same dull note to such as nothing prize,
But what those seasons, from the teeming Earth,
To doating sense indulge. But nobler minds,

Which relish fruits unripen'd by the Sun,
Make their days various; various as the dyes
On the dove's neck, which wanton in his rays.
On minds of dove-like innocence possest,
On lighten'd minds, that bask in virtue's beams,
Nothing hangs tedious, nothing old revolves
In that, for which they long; for which they live.
Their glorious efforts, wing'd with heavenly hope,
Each rising morning sees still higher rise;
Each bounteous dawn its novelty presents
To worth maturing, new strength, lustre, fame;
While Nature's circle, like a chariot-wheel
Rolling beneath their elevated aims,
Makes their fair prospect fairer every hour;
Advancing virtue, in a line to bliss ;
Virtue, which Christian motives best inspire!
And bliss, which Christian schemes alone ensure.
And shall we then, for Virtue's sake, commence
Apostates; and turn infidels for joy?

"

A truth it is, few doubt, but fewer trust,
"He sins against this life, who slights the next."
What is this life? How few their favourite know!
Fond in the dark, and blind in our embrace,
By passionately loving life, we make
Lov'd life unlovely; hugging her to death.
We give to time eternity's regard;
And, dreaming, take our passage for our port.
Life has no value as an end, but means;
An end deplorable! a means divine!
When 't is our all, 't is nothing! worse than nought;
A nest of pains: when held as nothing, much:
Like some fair hum'rists, life is most enjoy'd,
When courted least; most worth, when disesteem'd:
Then 't is the seat of comfort, rich in peace;
In prospect richer far; important! aweful!
Not to be mention'd, but with shouts of praise!
Not to be thought on, but with tides of joy!
The mighty basis of eternal bliss!
Where now the barren rock ? the painted skrow?
Where now, Lorenzo! life's eternal round?
Have I not made my triple promise good?
Vain is the world; but only to the vain.
To what compare we then this varying scene,
Whose worth ambiguous rises, and declines?
Waxes, and wanes? (In all propitious, night
Assists me here) compare it to the Moon;
Dark in herself, and indigent ; but rich
In borrow'd lustre from a higher sphere.
When gross guilt interposes, labouring Earth,
O'ershadow'd, mourns a deep eclipse of joy;
Her joys, at brightest, pallid, to that font
Of full effulgent glory, whence they flow.

Nor is that glory distant: Oh Lorenzo!
A good man, and an angel! these between
How thin the barrier! what divides their fate?
Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year;
Or, if an age, it is a moment still;
A moment, or eternity 's forgot.

Then be, what once they were, who now are gods;
Be what Philander was, and claim the skies.
Starts timid Nature at the gloomy pass?
The soft transition call it; and be cheer'd:
Such it is often, and why not to thee?
To hope the best, is pious, brave, and wise;
And may itself procure, what it presumes.
Life is much flatter'd, Death is much traduc'd;
Compare the rivals, and the kinder crown.
"Strange competition !”—True, Lorenzo! strange
So little life can cast into the scale.

Life makes the soul dependent on the dust;

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