Deny'd the charity of duft, to spread

O'er duft! a charity their dogs enjoy.

What could I do? what fuccour? what refource?
With pious facrilege, a grave I ftole;
With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd;
Short in my duty; coward in my grief!

More like her murderer, than friend, I crept,
With foft-fufpended step; and, muffled deep
In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last figh.
I whisper'd what should echo thro' their realms;
Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies.
Prefumptuous fear! how durft I dread her foes,
While nature's loudeft dictates I obey'd?
Pardon neceffity, bleft fhade! of grief
And indignation rival bursts I pour'd;
Half-execration mingled with my prayer;
Kindled at man, while I his God ador'd;
Sore-grudg'd the favage land her facred duft;
Stampt the curft foil; and with humanity
(Deny'd Narciffa) wifh'd them all a grave.
Glows my refentment into guilt! what guilt
Can equal violations of the dead?

The dead how facred! facred is the duft
Of this heav'n-labour'd form, erect, divine!
This heav'n-affum'd majestic robe of earth,
He deign'd to wear, who hung the vast expanfe
With azure bright, and cloth'd the fun in gold.
When ev'ry paffion fleeps that can offend;
When strikes us ev'ry motive that can melt;
When man can wreak his rancour ancontroul'd,

That strongest curb on infult and ill-will; Then, fpleen to duft? the duft of innocence; An angel's duft!This Lucifer tranfcends; When he contended for the patriarch's bones,, 'Twas not the strife of malice, but of pride; The ftrife of pontiff pride, not pontiff gall.

Far lefs than this is fhocking in a race
Moft wretched, but from streams of mutual love;
And uncreated, but for love divine;

And, but for love divine, this moment, loft,
By fate reforb'd, and funk in endless night.
Man, hard of heart to man! of horrid things
Moft horrid! 'mid ftupendous, highly strange!
Yet oft his courtefies are fmoother wrongs;
Pride brandifhes the favours he confers,
And contumelious his humanity:

What then is vengeance? hear it not, ye ftars!
And thou, pale moon! turn paler at the found;
Man is to man the foreft, fureft ill.

A previous blaft foretells the rifing storm;
O'erwhelming turrets threaten ere they fall;
Volcano's bellow ere they difembogue;
Earth trembles ere her yawning jaws devour;
And smoke betrays the wide-confuming fire:
Ruin from man is moft conceal'd when near,
And fends the dreadful tidings in the blow.
Is this the flight of fancy? would it were!
Heav'n's Sov'reign faves all beings but himself,
That hideous fight, a naked human heart.

Fir'd is the mufe? and let the mufe be fir'd:

Who not inflam'd, when what he speaks, he feels,
And in the nerve most tender, in his friends?
Shame to mankind! Philander had his foes:
He felt the truths 1 fing, and I in him.
But he, nor I, feel more; paft ills, Narciffa!
Are funk in thee, thou recent wound of heart!
Which bleeds with other cares, with other pangs;
Pangs num'rous, as the num'rous ills that fwarm'd
O'er thy distinguish'd fate, and, clust'ring there
Thick as the locuft on the land of Nile,

Made death more deadly, and more dark the grave.
Reflect (if not forgot my touching tale)

How was each circumstance with afpics arm'd?
An afpic, each; and all, an Hydra-woc.
What strong Herculean virtue could fuffice?—
Or is it virtue to be conquer'd here?
This hoary cheek, a train of tears bedews;
And each tear mourns its own distinct distress;
And each distress, diftinctly mourn'd, demands
Of grief still more, as heighten'd by the whole.
A grief like this proprietors excludes:
Not friends alone fuch obfequies deplore;
They make mankind the mourner; carry fighs
Far as the fatal fanie can wing her way,
And turn the gayeft thought of gayest age,
Down their right channel, thro' the vale of death.
The vale of death! that hufh'd Cimmerian vale,
Where darkness, brooding o'er unfinish'd fates,
With raven wing incumbent, waits the day
(Dread day!) that interdicts all future change!

That fubterranean world, that land of ruin!

Fit walk, Lorenzo, for proud human thought!
There let my thought expatiate; and explore
Balfamic truths, and healing fentiments,

Of all most wanted, and most welcome, here.
For gay Lorenzo's fake, and for thy own,
My foul! The fruits of dying friends furvey;
Expose the vain of life; weigh life and death:
Give death his eulogy; thy fear fubdue;
And labour that firft palm of noble minds,
A manly fcorn of terror from the tomb.'

This harvest reap from thy Narciffa's grave,
As poets feign'd from Ajax' streaming blood
Arofe, with grief infcrib'd, a mournful flow'r;
Let wisdom bloffom from my mortal wound,
And, firft, of dying friends; what fruit from thefe?
It brings us more than triple aid; an aid
To chafe our thoughtleffnefs, fear, pride, and guilt.
Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud,
To damp our brainlefs ardours; and abate
That glare of life, which often blinds the wife.
Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth
Qur rugged pafs to death; to break thofe bars
Of terror, and abhorrence, nature throws
Crofs our obftructed way; and, thus, to make
Welcome, as fafe, our port from ev'ry ftorm.
Each friend by fate fnatch'd from us, is a plume
Pluck'd from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us ftoop from our aerial heights,
And, damp'd with omen of our own decease,

On drooping pinions of ambition lower'd,
Juft fkim earth's furface, ere we break it up,
O'er putrid earth to fcratch a little duft,
And fave the world a nuifance. Smitten friends
Are angels fent on errands full of love;
For us they languish, and for us they die:
And shall they languifh, fhall they die, in vain?
Ungrateful, fhall we grieve their hovering fhades,
Which wait the revolution in our hearts?
Shall we disdain their filent, foft address;
Their pofthumous advice, and pious prayer?
Senfelefs, as herds that graze their hallow'd graves,
Tread under foot their agonies and groans;
Fruftrate their anguish, and deftroy their deaths?
Lorenzo! no; the thought of death indulge;
Give it its wholefome empire; let it reign,
That kind chaftifer of thy foul in joy!

Its reign will spread thy glorious conquefts far,
And still the tumults of thy ruffled breaft:
Aufpicious aera! golden days, begin!

The thought of death, fhall, like a god, inspire,
And why not think on death? is life the theme
Of ev'ry thought? and wifh of ev'ry hour?
And fong of ev'ry joy? furprising truth!
The beaten fpaniel's fondness not fo ftrange.
To wave the numerous ills that feize on life
As their own property, their lawful prey;
Ere man has measur'd half his weary stage,
His luxuries have left him no referve,
No maiden relishes, unbroach'd delights;