Of tender violations apt to die?
Reserve will wound it; and distrust, destroy.
Deliberate on all things with thy friend.
But since friends grow not thick on ev'ry bough,
Nor ev'ry friend unrotten at the core;
First on thy friend, delib'rate with thyself;
Pause, ponder, sift; not eager in the choice,
Nor jealous of the chosen; fixing, fix;
Judge before friendship, then confide till death.
Well, for thy friend; but nobler far, for thee.
How gallant danger for earth's highest prize!
A friend is worth all' hazard we can run.
Poor is the friendless master of a world:
A world in purchase for a friend is gain."
So sung he (angels hear that angel sing!
Angels from friendship gather half their joy !)
So sung Philander, as his friend went round
In the rich ichor, in the gen❜rous blood
Of Bacchus, purple god of joyous wit,
A brow solute, and ever-laughing eye.
He drank long health, and virtue to his friend
His friend, who warm'd him more, who more inspir'd.'
Friendship's the wine of life; but friendship new
(Not such was his) is neither strong, nor pure.
O! for the bright complexion, cordial warmth,
And elevating spirit, of a friend,
For twenty summers rip'ning by my side:
All feculence of falshood long thrown down;
All social virtues rising in his soul;
As crystal clear; and smiling, as they rise.
Here nectar flows; it sparkles in our sight;
Rich to the taste, and genuine from the heart.
High-flavor'd bliss for gods! on earth how rare!
On earth how lost!-Philander is no more.
Think'st thou the theme intoxicates my song?
Am I too warm?-Too warm I cannot be.
I lov'd him much; but now I love him more.
Like birds whose beauties languish, half conceal'd,
Till mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes
Expanded shine with azure, green, and gold;
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
His flight Philander took; his upward flight,
If ever soul ascended. Had he dropt,
(That eagle genius!) O had he let fall
One feather as he flew, I then, had wrote,
What friends might flatter; prudent foes forbear;
Rivals scarce damn; and Zoilus reprieve.
Yet what I can, I must: it were profane
To quench a glory lighted at the skies,
And cast in shadows his illustrious close.
Strange! the theme most affecting, most sublime,
Momentous most to man, should sleep unsung!
And yet it sleeps, by genius unawak'd,
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 honor 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
Aëreal 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 f
Or, at the midnight altar's hallow'd flame.
It is religion to proceed: I pause-
And enter, aw'd, the temple of my theme.
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 privileg'd 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 unrestor❜d by this, despair your cure.
For, here resistless demonstration dwells;
A death-bed's a detector of the heart.
Here tir'd dissimulation drops her mask,
Thro' life's grimace, that mistress of the scene!
ere real, and apparent are the same.
u 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 sovereign 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 shudders at the dark unknown!
"A sun extinguish'd! a just op'ning grave!
"And oh! the last, last; what? (can words express,
"Thought reach ?) the last, 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 burn within us at the scene!
Whence this brave bound o'er limits fix'd 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; mix'd 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 vapors and descending shades,
With damps, and darkness, drown the spacious vale;
Undamp'd 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 the 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.
Ignoscenda quidem, sirent si ignoscere Manes.....Virg.
TO HER GRACE THE DUTCHESS OF P....
FROM dreams, where thought in fancy's maze runs
To reason, that heav'n-lighted lamp in man,
Once more I wake; and at the destin'd hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moment 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! unacknowledg'd! unapprov'd!
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! dang'rous the desire.
Take Phoebus to yourselves, ye basking bards!
Inebriate at fair fortune's fountain-head;
And reeling thro' the wilderness of joy ;
Where sense runs savage, broke from reason's chain,
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