HE* (for I know not yet her name in heav'n)
Not early, like NARCISSA, left the scene;
Nor fudden, like PHILANDER. What avail?
This feeming mitigation but inflames;
This fancy'd med'cine heightens the disease.
The longer known, the closer still she grew;
And gradual parting is a gradual death.
'Tis the grim tyrant's engine, which extorts,
By tardy preffure's ftill-increafing weight,
From hardeft hearts, confeffion of diftrefs.
O the long, dark approach through years of pain,
Death's gall'ry! (might I dare to call it fo)
With dismal doubt, and sable terror, hung;
Sick hope's pale lamp its only glimm❜ring ray:
There, fate my melancholy walk ordain'd,
Forbid felf-love itself to flatter, there.
How oft I gaz'd, prophetically fad!
How oft I faw her dead, while yet in smiles!
In fmiles fhe funk her grief to leffen mine.
She spoke me comfort, and increas'd my pain.
Like powerful armies trenching at a town,
By flow, and filent, but refiftless fap,
In his pale progrefs gently gaining ground,
Death urg'd his deadly fiege; in spite of art,
* Referring to Night the Fifth.
Of all the balmy bleffings nature lends
To fuccour frail humanity. Ye ftars!
(Not now firft made familiar to my fight)
And thou, O moon! bear witness; many a night
He tore the pillow from beneath my head,
Ty'd down my fore attention to the shock,
By ceafelefs depredations on a life
Dearer than that he left me.
Of obfervation! darker ev'ry hour!
Lefs dread the day that drove me to the brink,
And pointed at eternity below;
When my foul fhudder'd at futurity;
When, on a moment's point, th' important dye
Of life and death spun doubtful, ere it fell,
And turn'd up life; my title to more woe.
But why more woe? More comfort let it be.
Nothing is dead, but that which wish'd to die;
Nothing is dead, but wretchedness and pain;
Nothing is dead, but what incumber'd, gall'd,
Block'd up the pafs, and barr'd from real life.
Where dwells that wish moft ardent of the wife?
Too dark the fun to fee it; highest stars
Too low to reach it; death, great death alone,
O'er stars and fun, triumphant, lands us there.
Nor dreadful our transition; tho' the mind,
An artist at creating felf-alarms,
Rich in expedients for inquietude,
Is prone to paint it dreadful. Who can take
Death's portrait true? The tyrant never fat.
Our sketch all random ftrokes, conjecture all;
Close shuts the grave, nor tells one fingle tale.
Death, and his image rifing in the brain,
Bear faint refemblance; never are alike ;
Fear thakes the pencil; fancy loves excefs;
Dark ignorance is lavish of her fhades:
And these the formidable picture draw.
But grant the worft; 'tis paft; new profpects rife; And drop a veil eternal o'er her tomb.
Far other views our contemplation claim,
Views that o'erpay the rigors of our life;
Views that suspend our agonies in death.
Wrapt in the thought of immortality,
Wrapt in the fingle, the triumphant thought!
Long life might lapfe, age unperceiv'd come on;
And find the foul unfated with her theme.
Its nature, proof, importance, fire my fong.
O that my fong could emulate my foul!
Like her, immortal. No!-the foul difdains
A mark fo mean; far nobler hope inflames;
If endless ages can outweigh an hour,
Let not the laurel, but the palm, infpire.
Thy nature, immortality! who knows?
And yet who knows it not? It is but life
In ftronger thread of brighter colour spun,
And spun for ever; dipt by cruel fate
In Stygian dye, how black, how brittle here!
How short our correspondence with the fun!
And while it lafts, inglorious! Our best deeds,
How wanting in their weight! Our highest joys
Small cordials to fupport us in our pain,
And give us ftrength to fuffer. But how great
To mingle int'refts, converse, amities,
With all the fons of reafon, fcatter'd wide
Thro' habitable space, wherever born,
Howe'er endow'd! To live free citizens
Of universal nature! To lay hold
By more than feeble faith on the Supreme!
To call heav'n's rich unfathomable mines
(Mines, which support archangels in their state)
Our own! To rise in fcience, as in bliss,
Initiate in the fecrets of the skies!
To read creation; read its mighty plan
In the bare bofom of the Deity!
The plan, and execution, to collate!
To fee, before each glance of piercing thought,
All cloud, all fhadow, blown remote; and leave
No mystery but that of Love Divine,
Which lifts us on the feraph's flaming wing,
From earth's aceldama, this field of blood,
Of inward anguifh, and of outward ill,
From darkness, and from duft, to fuch a fcene!
Love's element! true joy's illuftrious home!
From earth's fad contraft (now deplor❜d) more fair!
What exquifite viciffitude of fate!
Bleft abfolution of our blackest hour!
LORENZO, thefe are thoughts that make man Man,
The wife illumine, aggrandize the great.
How Great (while yet we tread the kindred clod,
And ev'ry moment fear to fink beneath
The clod we tread; foon trodden by our fons)
How great, in the wild whirl of time's purfuits,
To ftop, and paufe, involv'd in high prefage,
Thro' the long visto of a thousand years,
To stand contemplating our distant felves,
As in a magnifying mirror seen,
Enlarg'd, Ennobled, Elevate, Divine !
To prophefy our own futurities;
To gaze in thought on what all thought tranfcends!
To talk, with fellow-candidates, of joys
As far beyond conception as defert,
Ourselves th' aftonifh'd talkers, and the tale!
LORENZO, fwells thy bofom at the thought?
The fwell becomes thee: 'Tis an honeft pride.
Revere thyself; and yet thyfelf despise.
His nature no man can o'er-rate; and none
Can under-rate his merit. Take good heed,
Nor there be modeft, where thou should'st be proud;
That almoft univerfal error fhun.
How just our pride, when we behold those heights!
Not those ambition paints in air, but those
Reafon points out, and ardent virtue gains;
And angels emulate; our pride how juft!
When mount we? When these shackles caft? When quit
This cell of the creation? This small nest,
Stuck in a corner of the univerfe,
Wrapt up in fleecy cloud, and fine-fpun air?
Fine-fpun to fenfe; but grofs and feculent
To fouls celeftial; fouls ordain'd to breathe
Ambrofial gales, and drink a purer sky;
Greatly triumphant on time's farther shore,
Where virtue reigns, enrich'd with full arrears;
While pomp imperial begs an alms of peace.
In empire high, or in proud fcience deep,
Ye born of earth! on what can you confer,
With half the dignity, with half the gain,
The guft, the glow of rational delight,
As on this theme, which angels praise and share?
Man's fates and favours are a theme in heaven.
What wretched repetition cloys us here!
What periodic potions for the fick!
Distemper'd bodies! and diftemper'd minds!
In an Eternity, what scenes fhall ftrike!
Adventures thicken! novelties surprise !
What webs of wonder fhall unravel, there !
What full day pour on all the paths of heaven,
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