And Trueft friends, thro' error, wound our reft;
Without misfortune, what calamities?

And what hoftilites, without a foe?

Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth:
But endless is the lift of human ills,

And fighs might sooner fail, than cause to figh.
A part how fmall of the terraqueous globe
Is tenanted by man? the rest a Waste,

Rocks, defarts, frozen feas, and burning fands;
Wild haunts of monfters, poisons, ftings, and death:
Such is the earth's melancholy map! But far
More fad this earth is a true map of Man :
So bounded are its haughty lord's Delights
To Woe's wide empire; where deep Troubles tofs;
Loud Sorrows howl, envenom'd Paffions bite,
Ravenous Calamities our vitals feize,
And threat'ning Fate wide opens to devour.
What then am I, who forrow for Myself?
In age, in infancy, from other's aid
Is all our hope to teach us to be Kind.
That, nature's Firft, Laft leffon to mankind:
The felfish heart deferves the pain it feels;
More generous forrow, while it finks, exalts,
And confcious virtue mitigates the pang.
Nor virtue, more than Prudence, bids me give
Swoin thought a Second channel; who divide,
They weaken too, the torrent of their grief;
Take then, O world! thy much-indebted tear:
How fad a fight is human happiness

To those whofe thought can pierce beyond an hour? thou! whate'er thou art, whofe heart exults ! Would't thou I fhou'd congratulate thy fate?

I know thou would'ft; thy pride demands it from me. Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs,

The falutary cenfure of a friend.

Thou happy Wretch! by blindness art thou bleft;

By dotage dandled to perpetual finiles.

Know, Smiler! at thy peril art thou pleas'd
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like a creditor fevere,
But rifes in demand for her delay;
She makes a fcourge of paft profperity,

To fting thee more, and double thy distress.

Lorenzo, fortune make her court to thee:
Thy fond heart dances, while the Syren fings,
Dear is thy welfare; think me not unkind;
I would not damp, but to fecure thy joys:
Think not that Fear is facred to the ftorm;
Stand on thy guard against the Smiles of fate.
Is heav'n tremenduous in its frown? moft fure;
And in its favours formidable too;

Its favours here are Irials, not rewards;
A call to duty, not discharge from care;
And should alarm us, full as much as woes;
Awake us to their Caufe, and Confequence:
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our defert;
Awe nature's tumult, and chaftife her joys,
Left while we clafp, we kill them; nay invert
To worse than Simple mifery, their charms:
Revoked joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bofom friendships to refentmemt four'd,
With rage envenow'd life against our peace.
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire;
Who builds on lefs than an Immortal bafe,
Fond as he feems, condemns his joys to death.

Mine dy'd with thee, Philander! thy laft figh
Diffolv'd the charm; the difenchanted earth
Loft all her luftre. Where, her glittering towers?
Her golden mountains, where all darken'd down
To naked wafte; a dreary vale of tears;

The great magician's dead! Thou poor, pale piece
Of out-caft earth, in darkness what a change
From yesterday! thy darling hope fo near,
(Long-labour'd prize!) O how ambition flufli'd
Thy glowing cheek? ambition truly great,
Of virtuous praife: Death's fubtle feed within,
(Sly, treacherous miner) working in the dark,
Smil'd at thy well-concerted fcheme, and beckon'd
The worm to riot on that rofe fo red,
Unfaded e'er it fell; one moments prey!

Man's forefight Conditionally wife;

Lorenzo wifdom into folly turns
Oft, the firft inftant, its idea fair

To labouring thought is born.

How dim our eye?

The Prefent moment terminates our fight;

Clouds, thick as thofe on doomsday, drown the Next ;
We pnetrate, we prophefy in vain.

Time is dealt out by particles; and each,
E'er mingled with the ftreaming fands of life,
By fate's inviolable oath is fworn

Deep filence, "Where eternity begins."

By nature's law, what may be, may be Now ;
There's no prerogative in human hours.
In human hearts what holder thought can rife,
Than man's prefumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to m rrow? In another wo: 1.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is f re to none; and yet on this Perhaps,
This Peradventure, infamous for lies,

As on a rock of adamant we build

Our mountain hopes; spin out eternal schemes,
As we the fatal fifters would out-spin,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.

Not even Philander had bespoke his fhroud;
Nor had he caufe; a warning was deny'd;
How many fail as fudden, not as fafe!
As fudden, tho' for years admo isht hume.
Of human ills the last extreme boy are,
Bew re, Lorenzo! a Slow-fudden death.
How dreadful that deliberate furprize!
Be wife to day, 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
*Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life:
: Precraftination is the thief of time,
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vaft concerns of an eternal scene.
If not fo frequent, would not this be ftrange?
That 'tis fo frequent This is ftranger till.

Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, " That all men are about to live :"
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They, one day, fhall not drivel; and their pride
On this reverfion takes up ready praife;

At least, their own; their future felves applauds ;
How excellent that life they Ne'er will lead ?
Time lodg'd in their Own hands is Folly's vails ;
That lodg'd in Fate's, to Wisdom they confign;
The thing they can't but Purpose they Poftpone ;
'Tis not in Folly, not to fcorn a fool;

And scarce in human Wiftom to do more.
All Promife is poor dilatory man,

And that thro' every stage; when young, indeed,
In full content, we fometimes nobly reft,
Unanxious for Ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous fons, our Fathers were more wife.
At Thirty man Suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at Forty, and reforms his plan;
At Fifty chides his infamous delay,
Puthes his prudent purpose to Refolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought

Refolves; and re-refolves: then dies the fame.
And why? because he thinks himself immortal:
All men think all men mortal, but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the fudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where past the shaft, no trace is found:
As from the Wing no fear the sky retains ;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death:
Even with the tender tear which nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.
Can I forget Philander? That were ftrange;
O my full heart !- -But fhould I give it vent,
The longest night, tho' longer far, would fail,
And the Lark liften to my Midnight fong.

The fpritely Lark's fhrill mattin wakes the morn;
Grief's fharpeft thorn hard-preffing on my breast,
I ftrive, with wakeful melody, to chear

The fullen gloom, fweet, Philomel! like thee,
And call the ftats to liften: every ftar
Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay.
Yet be not vain; there are, who thine excel,
And charm thro' diftant ages: wrapt in shade,
Prifoners of darkness! to the silent Hours,

How often I repeat their rage divine,

To lull my griefs, and fteal my heart from woe!
I rowl their raptures, but not catch their fire.
Dark, tho' not blind, like thee, Mæonidesr!
Or Milton! thee; ah cou'd I reach your stain !
Or His, who made Mæonides our Own.
Man too he firg: Immortal man I fing;
Oft burfts my fong beyond the bounds of life;
What, Now, but immortality can please?
O had He prefs'd his theme purfu'd the track,
Which opens out of darkness into day!

O had he mounted on his wing of fire,

Soar'd, where I fink, and fung Immortal man!
How had it bleft mankind? and refcu'd me?

NIGHT the SECOND.

ON TIME, DEATH, FRIENDSHIP. To the Right Hon. the Earl of WILMINGTON.

WHEN the cock crew, He wept”—Smote by

that eye,

Which looks on me, on all: that pow'r, who bids
This midnight centinel with clarion fhrill,
Emblem of that which fhall awake the dead,
Rouze fouls from flumber, into thoughts of Heav'n,
Shall I too weep? where then is fortitude?

And fortitude abandon'd, where is man?
I know the terms on which he fees the light:
He that is born is lifted: life is war;

Eternal war with woe: Who bears it beft
Deferves it leaft.- -On Other themes I'll dwell.
Lorenzo! let me turn My thoughts on thee,

And Thine, on themes may profit; profit there,
Where moft thy need: themes, too, the genuine growth
Of dear Philander's duft. He, thus, tho' dead,

May ftill befriend.-What themes? Time's wond'rous
Price,