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His lab'ring mind, the ftars in filence slide,
And feem all gazing on their future guest,
See him foliciting his ardent fuit

In private audience: All the live-long night
Rigid in thought, and motionless, he stands;
Nor quits his theme, or pofture, till the fun
(Rude drunkard rifing rofy from the main) 1
Disturbs his nobler intellectual beam,

And gives him to the tumult of the world."
Hail, precious moments! ftoln from the black waste
Of murder'd time! aufpicious Midnight, hail!
The world excluded, ev'ry paffion hufh'd,
And open'd a calm intercourse with heav'n,
Here the foul fits in council; ponders pafi,
Predeftines future action; fees, not feels,
Tumultuous life, and reafons with the ftorm;
All her lies anfwers, and thinks down her charms, ‹.
What awful joy! what mental liberty!

I am not pent in darkness; rather fay

(If not too bold) in darkness I'm embower'd.
Delightful gloom the clut'ring thoughts around
Spontaneous rife, and bloffom in the fhade;

But droop by day, and ficken in the fun.
Thought borrows light elfewhere; from that first fire,
Fountain of animation! whence defcends
Urania, my celeftial gueft; who deigns
Nightly to vifit me fo mean; and now
Confcious how needful difcipline to man.
From pleafing dalliance with the charms of Night,
My wand'ring thought recalls, to what excites
Far other beat of heart; Narciffa's tomb !
Or is it feeble nature calls me back,
And breaks my fpirit into grief again?
Is it a Stygian vapour in my blood!

A cold flow puddle, creeping through my veins !
Or is it thus with all men ? -Thus with all.
What are we? How unequal! Now we foar,
And now we fink; to be the fame, tranfcends
Our prefeat prowefs. Dearly pays the foul.

J

For lodging ill; too dearly rents her clay.
Reafon, a baffled counsellor! but adds
The blufh of weakness to the bane of woe.
The nobleft fpirit fighting her hard fate,
In this damp, dufky region, charg'd with ftorms,
But feebly flutters, yet untaught to fly

Or flying, fhort her flight, and fure her fall.
Our utmost ftrength, when down, to rife again;
And not to yield, though beaten, all our praise.
'Tis vain to feek in men for more than man.
Though proud in promise, big in previous thought.
Experience damps our triumph. I who, late
Emerging from the fhadows of the grave,
Where grief detain'd me pris'ner, mounting high,
Threw wide the gates of everlafting day,
And call'd mankind to glory, fhook off pain,
Mortality fhook off, in æther pure,

And ftruck the ftars; now feel my fpirits fail:
They drop me from the zenith; down I rush,
Like him whom fable fledg'd with waxen wings,
In forrow drown'd- -but not in forrow loft.
How wretched is the man who never mourn'd!
I dive for precious pearl in Sorrow's stream !.
Not fo the thoughtlefs man, that only grieves:
Takes all the torment, and rejects the gain,
(Ineftimable gain !) and gives Heaven leave
To make him but more wretched, not more wife.
If Wisdom is our leffon (and what else
Ennobles man; what else have angels learnt ?)
Grief! more proficients in thy fchool are made,
Than genius or proud learning e'er could boaft.
Voracious learning, often over-fed,
Digefts not into fenfe her motly meal.
This book-cafe, with dark booty almoft burft,
This forager on other's wifdom, leaves
Her native farm, her reafon, quite untill'd.
With mixt manure fhe furfeits the rank foil,
Dung'd, but not drefs'd; and rich to beggary.
A pomp untameable of weeds prevails

Her fervant's wealth incumber'd Wisdom mourns.
And what fays Genius ? "Let the dull be wife."
Genius, too hard for right, can prove it wrong;
And loves to boaft, where blush men lefs infpir'd.
It pleads exemption from the laws of Sense;
Confiders Reafon as a leveller;

Ard fcorns to fhare a blessing with the croud.
That wife it could be, thinks an ample claim
To glory, and to pleasure, gives the reft...
Craffus but fleeps, Ardelia is undone.
Wisdom, lefs fhudders at a fool, than wit.

But Wifilom fmiles when humbled mortals weep.
When Sorrow wounds the breaft, as ploughs the glebe,
And hearts obdurate feel her soft'ning show'r;
Her feed celeftial, then, glad Wisdom fows;
Her golden harveft triumphs in the foil.
If fo, NARCISSA! welcome my Relapfe;
Ill raise a tax on my calamity,

And reap rich compenfation for my pain.
I'll range the plenteous intellectual field;
And gather ev'ry thought of fov reign pow'r
To chafe the moral maladies of man:

Thoughts, which may bear tranfplanting to the fkies,
Though natives of this coarse penurious foil;
Nor wholly wither there, where feraphs fing,
Refind exalted, not annull d, in heav n;
Reafon the fun that gives them birth, the fame
In either clime, though more illuftrious there.
Thefe choicely cull'd, and elegantly rang'd,
Shall form a garland for, NARCISSA's tomb,
And peradventure, of no fading flow'rs. <

Say, on what themes fhall puzzled choice defcend? ? "Th' importance of contemplating the tomb, "Why men decline it ; Suicide's foul birth; "The various kinds of grief; the faults of age; "And Deaths dread character-invite my fong." And, firft, th' importance of our end furvey'd. Friends counfel quick difmiffion of our grief; Miftaken kindness! our hearts heal too focn.

H 2

Are they more kind than he who ftruck the blow?
Who bid it do his errand in our hearts,
And banish peace, till nobler guests arrive,
And bring it back, a true and endless peace?
Calamities are friends: As glaring day
Of thefe unnumber'd luftres robs our fight;
Profperity puts out unnumber'd thoughts,
Of import high, and light divine to man.
The man, how bleft! who, tick of gaudy scenes,
(Scenes apt to thruft between us and ourselves),
Is led by choice to take his fav'rite walk
Beneath Death's gloomy, filent, cyprefs fhades,
Unpierc'd by Vanity's fantaftic ray:

To read his monuments, to weigh his duft,
Visit his vaults, and dwell among his tombs !
LORENZO! read with me NARCISSA's flone;
(NARCISSA was thy fav'rite); let us read
Her moral ftone; few doctors preach fo well;
Few orators fo tenderly can touch

The feeling heart. What pathos in the date!
Apt words can ftrike; and yet in them we fee
Faint images of what we, here, enjoy.

TV hat caufe have we to build on length of life?
Temptations seize, when Fear is laid asleep;
And ill foreboded is our ftrongest guard.

See from her tomb, as from an humble fhrine,
Truth, radient goddefs! fallies on my foul,
And puts Delufion's dufky train to flight;
Difpels the mifts our fultry Paffions raife,
From obje&s low, terreftrial, and obfcene;
And fhews the real eftimate of things;
Which no man, unafflicted, ever faw;
Pulls off the veil from Virtue's rifing charms;
Detects Templation in a thoufand lies.

Truth bids me look on men, as autumn leaves,
And all they bleed for, as the fummer's duit,
Driv'n by the whirlwind; Lighted by her bears,
I widen my horizon, gain new powers,
See things invifible, feel things remote,

grave.

Am prefent with futurities; think nought
To man fo foreign, as the joys poffeft;
Nought fo much his, as thofe beyond the
No Folly keeps its colour in her fight;
Pale worldly Wijdom lofes all her charms;
In pompous promile from her fchemes profound,.
If future fate the plans, 'tis all in leaves,
Like Sibyl, unfubftantial, fleeting blifs!
At the firft blaft it vanishes in air.

Not fo, celeftial. Wouldst thou know, LORENZO !
How differ worldly wisdom and divine ?
Juft as the waning and the waxing moon.
More empty worldly Wisdom ev'ry day ;
And ev'ry day more fair her rival fhines.
When later, there's lefs time to play the fool :
Soon our whole term for wifdom is expir'd ;-
(Thou know'ft fhe calls no council in the grave);
And everlasting fool is writ in fire,

Or real Wisdom wafts us to the kies.

As worldly schemes refemble Sibyl's leaves,
The good man's days to Sibyl's books compare,
(In ancient story read, thon know'ft the tale),
In price ftill rifing, as in number lefs.
Inestimable quite his final hour :

Forthat who thrones can offer, offer thrones:
Infolvent worlds the purchase cannot pay.

"Oh let me die his death!"-All Nature cries.
"Then live his life."-All Nature falters there ;
Our great phyfician daily to confult,

To commune with the grave our only cure.

What grave prefcribes the beft ?--A friend's? and From a friend's grave, how foon we difengage! [yet, Ev'n to the dearest, as his marble, cold.

Why are friends ravifh'd from us! 'Tis to bind,
By foft affection's tics, on human hearts,

The thought of death, which Reafen, too fupine,
Or mifemploy'd, fo rarely faftens there.
Nor reafon, nor affection, no, nor both
Combin'd, can break the witchcrafts of the world.

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