So fad the fcene: What then must Perfeus feel,
To fee Jove's race attend the victor's wheel:
To fee the flaves of his worft foes increase,
From fuch a fource !-An emperor's embrace?
He ficken'd foon to death; and, what is worse,
He well deferv'd, and felt, the coward's curfe
Unpity'd, fcorn'd, infulted his last hour,
Far, far from home, and in a vafal's power:
His pale cheek refted on his fhameful chain,
No friend to mourn, no flatterer to feign;
No fuit retards, no comfort fooths his doom,
And not one tear beders a monarch's tomb.
Nor ends it thus-dire vengeance to complete,
His antient empire falling, fhares his fate:
His throne forgot! his weeping country chain'd!
And nations afk-Where Alexander reign'd.
As public woes a prince's crime pursue,
So public bleffings are his virtue's due,
Shout, Britons, hout-aufpicious fortune bless!
And cry, Long live-OUR title to fuccefs !
AS the occafion of this Poem was real, not fictitious; fo the method purfued in it, was rather impofed, by what spontaneously arofe in the author's mind on that occafion, than meditated or defigned. Which will appear very probable from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of Poetry, which is, from long narrations to draw short morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is fhort, and the morality arifing from it makes the bulk of the Poem. The reason of it is, That the facts mentioned did naturally pour thefe moral reflections on the thought of the writer.
LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.
ARTHUR ONSLOW, Esq.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
AIR'D Nature's fweet reftorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready vifit pays
Where Fortune fmiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unfully'd with a tear.
From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose,
I wake: How happy they, who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infeft the
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I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd defponding thought,
From wave to wave of fancy'd misery,
At random drove, her helm of reason loft.
Tho' now reftor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) feverer for severe.
The Day too short for my diftrefs; and Night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is funshine to the colour of my fate.
Night, fable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majefty, now ftretches forth
Her leaden fceptre o'er a flumb'ring world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor lift'ning ear, an object finds;
Creation fleeps. "Tis as the gen'ral pulse
Of life ftood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful paufe! prophetic of her end.
And let her prophefy be foon fulfill'd;
Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.
Silence and Darkness! folemn fifters! twins
From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought
To Reason, and on Reafon build Refolve,
(That column of true majefty in man)
Affift me: I will thank you in the
The grave, your kingdom: There this frame shall fall
A victim facred to your dreary fhrine.
But what are ye?
THOU, who didst put to flight
Primæval Silence, when the morning stars,
Exulting, fhouted o'er the rifing ball;
O THOU, whose word from folid darkness struck.
That spark, the fun; ftrike wisdom from my foul;
My foul, which flies to Thee, her truft, her treasure,
As mifers to their gold, while others reft.
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