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 fame.
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 heav'n.
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 heav'n,

If sound his virtue; as Philander's sound.

Heav'n waits not the last moment; owns her friends
On this side death, and points them out to men ;
A lecture silent, but of sov'reign pow'r!
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 giv'n! 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) Demands from man ?-I thought him man till now.

Thro' nature's wreck, thro' vanquish'd agonies,
(Like the stars struggling thro' this midnight gloom)
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 Heav'n vouchsafes to call her own. We gaze, we weep! mixt tears of grief and joy! Amazement strikes! devotion bursts to flame! Christians adore! and infidels believe.

As some tall tow'r, 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 gen'ral horror sheds
On the low level of th' inglorious throng:

Sweet peace, and heav'nly hope, and humble joy,
Divinely beam on his exalted soul;

Destruction gild, and crown him for the skies,
With incommunicable lustre bright.

To reason, that heav'n lighted lamp in man,
Once more I wake; and at the destined hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moments 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! 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 Phœbus 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,
And modestly forego thine own! O thou,
Who didst thyself, at midnight hours, inspire!
Say, why not Cynthia, patroness of song?
As thou ber crescent, she thy character
Assumes, 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 heav'n!
What title or what name endears thee most?
Cynthia Cyllene! Phœbe !-or dost hear
With higher gust, fair Pd of the skies?
Is that the soft enchantment calls thee down,
More pow'rful than of old Circean charm?
Come, but from heav'nly 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 thro' 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;

At the Duke of Norfolk's masquerade.

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. O Philander !
What was thy fate? a double fate to me;"
Portent and pain! a menace and a blow!
Like the black raven hov'ring 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 grove she fell,
And left it unharmonious! all its charm
Extinguish'd 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, flow'rs of paradise,

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

We guess of heav'n; and these were all her own;
And she was mine; and I was-was!-most blest-
Gay title of the deepest misery!

As bodies grow more pond'rous 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,