You gladlier grew, ambitious of her Hand,
Which often cropt your Odours, Incense meet
To Thought fo pure; her flow'ry State of Mind
In Joy unfal'n. Ye lovely Fugitives!
Coæval Race with Man! for Man you fmile;
Why not smile at him too? You share indeed
His fudden Pafs; but not his conftant Pain.
So Man is made, nought minifters Delight,
But what his glowing Paffions can engage;
And glowing Paflions, 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,
By plucking Fruit deny'd to mortal Tafte,
While Here prefuming on the Rights of Heaven.
For Tranfport doft Thou call on ev'ry Hour,
LORENZO? At thy Friend's Expence be wife;
Lean not on Earth; 'twill pierce thee to the Heart;
A broken Reed, at beft; but, oft, a Spear;
On its sharp Point Peace bleeds, and Hope expires.
Turn, hopeless Thought! turn from Her:-Thought Refenting rallies, and wakes ev'ry Woe. Snatch'd ere thy Prime! and in thy bridal Hour! And when kind Fortune, with thy Lover, fmil'd! And when high-flavour'd thy fresh-op'ning Joys! And when blind Man pronounc'd thy Blifs complete! And on a Foreign Shore; where Strangers wept ! Strangers to Thee, and, more furprifing still, Strangers to Kindness, wept: Their Eyes let fall Inhuman Tears; ftrange Tears; that trickled down From marble Hearts! obdurate Tenderness! A Tenderness that call'd them more fevere ; In Spite of Nature's foft Perfuafion, steel'd; While Nature melted, Superftition rav'd;
That mourn'd the Dead; and This deny'd a Grave.
Their Sighs incenft; Sighs foreign to the Will! Their Will the Tyger fuckt, outrag'd the Storm.
For Oh! the curft Ungodliness of Zeal!
While finful Fleh relented, Spirit nurft
In blind Infallibility's Embrace,
The Sainted Spirit petrify'd the Breast;
Deny'd the Charity of Duft, to fpread
O'er Duft! a Charity their Dogs enjoy.
What cou'd I do? what Succour? what Resource ?
With pious Sacrilege, 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 Laft Sigh.
I whisper'd what should echo thro' their Realms ;
Nor writ her Name, whofe Tomb fhou'd pierce the Skies.
Prefumptuous Fear! How durft I dread her Foes,
While Nature's loudeft Dictates I obey'd?
Pardon Neceffity, Bleft Shade! Of Grief
And Indignation rival Burfts I pour'd;
Half-execration mingled with my Prayer;
Kindled at Man, while I his God ador'd;
Sore-grudg'd the Savage Land her Sacred Duft;
Stampt the curft Soil; and with Humanity
(Deny'd NARCISSA) wifht them All a Grave.
Glows my Refentment into Guilt! What Guilt
Can equal Violations of the Dead?
'The Dead how Sacred! Sacred 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 vaft Expanse
With Azure bright, and cloath'd the Sun in Gold.
When ev'ry Paffion fleeps that can offend;
When ftrikes us ev'ry Motive that can melt;
When Man can reek his Rancour uncontroul'd,
That ftrongest Curb on Infult and Ill-will;
Then, Spleen to Duft? the Duft of Innocence?
An Angel's Duft! -This Lucifer transcends ;
When He contended for the Patriarch s Bones,
"Twas not the Strife of Malice, but of Pride; The Strife 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 brandishes the Favours He confers,
And contumelious his Humanity :
What then his Vengeance? Hear it not, ye Stars!
And thou, pale Moon! turn paler at the Sound;
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 Sight, 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 I fing, and I in Him.
But he, nor I, feel more: Paft Ills, NARCISSA!
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 diftinguifht Fate, and, cluft'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-Woe.
What ftrong 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 diftinct Diftrefs;
And each Distress, distinctly 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 Sighs
Far as the fatal Fame can wing her Way,
And turn the gayeft Thought of gayelt Age,
Down their right Chanel, thro' the Vale of Death.
The Vale of Death! That husht Cimmerian Vale,
Where Darkness, brooding o'er unfinisht Fates,
With Raven Wing incumbent, waits the Day
(Dread Day!) that interdicts all future Change.
That Subterranean World, that Land of Ruin!
Fit Walk, LORENZO, for proud human Thought!
There let my Thought expatiate; and explore
Balfamic Truths, and healing Sentiments,
Of all most wanted, and most welcome, Here,
For gay LORENZo's fake, and for thy own,
My Soul! "The Fruits of Dying Friends furvey;
"Expofe the Vain of Life; weigh Life and Death:
"Give Death his Eulogy; Thy Fear fubdued;
And labour that First Palm of noble Minds, "A manly Scorn of Terror from the Tomb."
This Harvest reap from thy NARCISSA's Grave, As Poets feign'd from AJAX' ftreaming 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 These? It brings us more than Triple Aid; an Aid To chafe our Thoughtfulness, Fear, Pride, and Guilt.
Our dying Friends come o'er us like a Cloud,
To damp our brainless Ardors; and abate
That Glare of Life, which often blinds the Wife.
Our dying Friends are Pioneers, to fmooth
Our rugged Pass to Death; to break thofe Bars
Of Terror, and Abhorrence, Nature throws
Crofs our obstructed Way; and, thus, to make
Welcome, as fafe, our Port from ev'ry Storm.
Each Friend by Fate fnatch'd from us, is a Plume
Pluckt from the Wing of human Vanity,
Which makes us ftoop from our aereal Heights,
And, dampt with Omen of our own Decease,
On drooping Finions of Ambition lower'd,
Juft fkim Earth's Surface, ere we break it up,
O'er putrid Pride to scratch 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 languish, shall they die in vain ?
Ungrateful, thall we grieve their hoy'ring Shades,
Which wait the Revolution in our Hearts ?
Shall we difdain their filent, soft Addrefs;
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 destroy their Deaths?
LORENZO ! no; the Thought of Death indulge s
Give it its wholfome Empire; let it reign,
That kind Chaftifer of the Soul to Joy!
Its Reign will spread thy glorious Conquefts far,
And ftill the Tumults of thy ruffled Breaft:
Aufpicious Era! Golden Days, begin!
The Thought of Death, fhall, like a God, infpire.
And why not think on Death? Is Life the Theme
Of ev'ry Thought? and Wifh of ev'ry Hour?
And Song of ev'ry Joy? Surprising Truth!
The beaten Spaniel's Fondness not so strange.
To wave the num'rous Ills that feize on Life
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