'Thro' life's grimace, that miftrefs of the fcene !
HERE real, and apparent, are the fame.
You fee the Man; you fee his hold on heaven;
If found his virtue; as Philander's found,
Heav'n waits not the laft moment; owns her friends
On this fide death; and points them out to men,
A lecture, filent, but of fovereign pow'r!
To vice, confufion; and to virtue, peace.
Whatever farce the boaftful hero plays.
Virtue alone has Majefty in death;
And greater ftil, the more the tyrant frowns.
Philander he feverely frown'd on thee.
No warning given! unceremonious fate!
A fudden ruth from life's meridian joys!
A wrench from all we LOVE! from all we AKE!
A reftless bed of pain! a plurge opaque
Beyond conjecture! feeble Nature's dread!
Strong Reafon's thucder at the dark unknown!
A fun extinguish'd! a just opening grave!
And oh! the laft, laft; what? (can words exprefs?
Thought reach it?) the laft,--Silence of a friend!'
Where are thofe horrors, that amazement, where,
This hideous group of ills, which Singly fhock,.
Demand from man-I thought him man till Now.
Through nature's wreck, through vanquisht agonies,
(Like the stars ftruggling 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 fing'e heir.
His comforters he comforts; great in ruin,
With unreluctant grandeur, GIVES, not Yickis
His foul fublime; and cl. fes with his fate.
How our hearts burnt within us at the fcene !
Whence, this brave bound o'er limits fixt to man!
His God fuftaies him in his final hour!
His final hour brings glory to his God!
Man's glory heav'n vouchfafes to call her own.
We gaze; we weep; mixt tears of grief and joy?
Amazement strikes! Devotion burfts to flame !
Chriftians adore! and Infidels believe.
As fome tall tow'r, or lofty mountains brow,
Detains the fun, illustrious from its height;
White rifing vapours. and descending tha Jes,
With damps, and darkness, drown the ip cious vale:
Undampt by doubt, undarken'd by despair,
Philander, thus, augutly rears his head,
At that black hour, which gen'ral horror fheds
On the low level of th' inglorious throng:
Sweet Peace, and heavenly HOPE, and humble joy,
Devinely beam on his exalted foul;
Destruction gild, and crown him for the fkies,
With incommunicab.e luftre, bright.
NIGHT the THIR D.
NARCISSA.
To her Grace the Dutchefs of P------. Ignofcenda quidem, fcirent fi ignofcere Manes.
ROM Dreams, whère thought in fancy's maze
To Reafon, that heav'n lighted lamp in man,
Once more I wake; and at the deftin'd hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moment favorn,
I keep my affignation with my woe.
O loft to virtue, loft to manly thought,
Loft to the noble fallies of the foul !
Who think it folitude, to be alone.
Communion fweet! communion large and high !
Our Beafon, Guardian angel.and our God!
Then nearest thefe, when others moft remote ;
And all, ere long, fhall be remote, BUT these.
How dreadful, THEN, to meet them all alone,
A ftranger! unacknowledg'd! unapprov'd!
Now woo them; wed them; bind them to thy breast:
To win thy with, creation has no more.
Or if we with a Fourth, it is a friend-
But friends, how mortal! dang'rous the defire.
Take Phabus to you felves, ye basking bards!
Inebriate at fair fortune's fountain head,
And reeling through the wilderness of joy;
Where Sente runs favage, broke from Reafon's chain,
And fings falfe peace, till fmother'd by the Pall.
My fortune is unlike; unlike my fong;
Unlike the deity my fong invokes.
I to Day's foft-ey'd fifter pay my court,
(Endymion's riva!!) and her aid implore;
Now firft implor'd in fuccour to the MUSE.
Thou, who didft lately borrow * Cynthia's form,
And modeftly forego thine own! @ thou,
Who didft thy felf, at midnight hours, infpire!
Say, why not Cynthia patronefs of fɔng ?
As thou her crefcent, the thy character
Affumes; ftill more a goddess by the change.
Are there demurring wits, who dare difpute
This revolution in the world Infpir'd?
Ye train Pierian! to the Lunar fphere,
In filent hour, addrefs your ardent call
For aid immortal; lefs her brother's right.
She, with the fpheres harmonious, nightly leads
The mazy dance, and hears their matchlefs ftrain.
A train for gods, deny'd to mortal car.
Tranfmit it heard, thou filver queen of heaven!
What title, or what name endears thee most ?
Cynthia! Cyllene! Phoebe !--or doft hear
With higher guft, fair P-d of the skies;
Is that the foft inchantment calls the down,
More pow'rful than of old Circean charm?
Come; but from heav'nly banquets with thee bring
The foul of fong; and whisper in mine ear
The theft divine; or in propitious dreams
(For dreams are thine) trans fufe it thro' the breaft
Of thy firft votary-- but not thy laft;
If, like thy Namefake, thou art ever kind.
And kind thou wilt be; kind on fuch a theme,
A theme fo like thee, a quite LUNAR theme,
At the duke of NORFOLK's masquerade.
Soft, modeft, melancholy, female, fair!
A theme that rofe all pale, and told my foul,
'Twas Night; on her fond hopes perpetual night;
A night which struck a damp, a deadlier damp,
Than that which fmote me from Philander's tomb.
Narciffa 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 faithlefs, alienated tear,
Or fhates it ere it falls. So frequent death,
Sorrow, he More than causes, he confounds ;
For human fighs 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 hov'ring o'er my peace,
Not lefs a bid of omen, than of prey.
It call'd Narciffa long before her hour;
It call'd her tender foul, by break of bliss,
From the first bloffom, from the buds of joy
Those few our noxious fate unblafted leaves
In this inclement clime of human life.
Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as fweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as foft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if ought happy HERF) as good!
For fortune fond had built her neft on high.
Like birds quite exquifite of note and plume,
Transfixt by Fate (who loves a lofty mark)
How from the fummit of the grove the fell,
And left it unharmonious! all its charm
Extinguifht in the wonders of her fong!
Her fong ftill vibrates in my ravisht ear,
Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain.
(0 to forget her !) thrilling thro' my heart!
Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy! this group
Of bright ideas, flow'rs of Paradife,
As yet unforfeit ! in one blaze we bind,
Kneel and prefent it to the skies; as all
We guess of heav'n; and THESE were all her own}
And he was mine; and I was
Gay title of the deepest misery!
As bodies grow more pond'rous, robb'd flife;
Good loft weighs more in grief, than gain'd, in joy.
Like blofiom'd trees o'eiturn'd by vernal ftorm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death ftill lovely, lovelier there;
Far lovelier! pity fwells the tide of love.
And will not the fevere excuse a figh?
Scorn the proud man that is afham'd to weep:
Our tears Indulg'd indeed deserve our shame.
Ye that e'er loft an angel! pity me.
Soon as the luftre languifht in her eye,
Dawning a dimmer day on human fight;
And on her cheek, the refidence of spring,
Pale omen fat; and fcatter'd fears around
On all that faw (and who would ceafe to gaze,
That once had feen?) with hafte, parental hafte,
I flew, I fnatch'd her from the rigil north,
Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew,
And bore her nearer to the fun; the fun
(As if the fun could envy) checkt his beam.
Deny'd his wonted fuccour, nor with more
Regret beheld her drooping, than the bells.
Of lilies; faireft 1 lies, not fo far!
Queen lidies! and ye painted populace!
Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrofial lives;.
In morn and ev'ing dew, your beauties bathe,
And drink the fun; which give your cheeks to glow,
And out-blush (Mine excepted) ev'ry fair;
You gladlier gew, ambitious of her hand,
Which often cropt your odours, incense meet
To thought fo pure! Ye lovely fugitives!
Coæval race with man! for man you fmile?
Why not smile AT him too! you share indeed.
His fuddan pafs; but not his constant pain.
So man is made, nought minifters delight,
But what his glowing paffions can engage;
And glowing paffions, bent on aught below,
Muft, foon or late, with anguish.turn the scale;
And anguish, after rapture, how fevere!
Rapture? bold man! who tempts the wrath divine,
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