By plucking fruit deny'd to mortal taste,
Whilft HERE, prefuming on the rights of heaven.
For tranfport doft thou call on every hour,
Lorenzo at thy friends 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 b'eeds, and hope expires.
Turn, hopeless thought! turn from her :-thought
Refenting rallies, and wakes ev'ry woe. [repell'd,
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 there; where frangers wept !
Strangers to thee, and, more furprising ftill,
Strangers to kindnefs, wept: their eyes let fall
I human 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; fteel'd:
While Nature melted, Superstition rav'd;
THAT mourn'd the dead; and THIS deny'd a grave.
Their fighs incens'd; fighs foreign to the will!
Their will the TYGER fuckt, outrag'd the form.
For, oh! the curft ungedlinefs of zeal!
While Sinful Flesh relented, Spirit nurt
In blind Infallibility's embrace,
The Sainted fpirit petrify'd the breaft;
De y'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 ftep; and muffled deep
In midnight darkness, Whisper'd my last figh.
I Whisper'd what should echo hro' their rea.ms:
Nor whit her name, whofe tomb should pierce the fkics.
Prefumptuous fear! how durft I dread her foes,
While nature's loudeft dictates I obey'd?
Pardon neceffity, bleft fhade! of grief
And jadigration rival burfts I pour'd;
Half-execration mingled with my prayer;
Kindled at man, while 1 his God ador'd;
Sore grudg'd the favage land her facred duft;
Stampt the curst sol; and with humanity
(Den'd Na:ciffa) wifht them all a grave.
Glows my refentment into guilt? what guik
Can equal violations of the dead?
The dead how facred! ficred is the duft Of this heav'n labour'd form, ere&t, divine! This heav'n afum'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 offeed; When ftrikes us ev'ry motive that can melt; When man can wreak his rancour Uncontroul'd, That strongest curb on infult and ill-will; THEN, fpleen to DUST? the dust of innocence ? An angel's duft !This Lucifer tranfcends ; When he contended for the patriarch's bones ; 'Twas not the firife 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 f om ftreams of mutual love;
And Uncreated, but for love divine;
And, but for love divine, this moment, LOST,
By fate reforb'd, and funk in endless night.
Man hard of heart to man? of horrid things
Moft horrid midft ftupendous, highly ftrange!
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 Aars!
And thou, pale moon! turn paler at the found;
Man is to man the foreft, fureft ill.
A previous blast foretells the rising ftorm ;
O'erwhelming turrets threaten ere they fall;
Volcano's bellow ere they difembogue ;
Earth themhle ere her yawning jaws devour;
And finoke betrays the wide confuming fire:
Ruin from man is most conceal'd when near,
And fends the dreadful tidings in the blow.
Is this the fight of fancy? would it were!
Heav'n's fov'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 fpeaks, he feels,
And in the nerve most tender, in his friends?
Shame to mankind! Philander as his foes;
He felt the truths. I fing, and I in him.
But he, nr 1, 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 diftinguisht fate, and cluft'ring there
Thick as the locuft on the land of NILE,
Made death more deadly, and more dark the grave. Refleå (if not forgot my touching tale)
How was each circumftance with ASPICs arm'd?
An ASPIC each; and all, and 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 Diftin& diftrefs;
And each diftrefs, diftin&tly mourn'd, demands
Of grief ftill 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 FAME can wing her way,
And turn the gayeft thought of gayeft age,
Down their right channel, thro' the vale of death.
The vale of death! that hufht Cimmerian vale,
Where Darkness, brooding o'er unfinisht 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 hyman thought!
There let my thought expatiate; and explore
Balfamic truths, and healing fentiments,
Of all moft wanted, and most welcome, HERE,
For gay Lorenzo's fake, and for thy own,
My foul! The fruits of dying friends furvey;
Expofe the VAIN of life; weigh life and death:
Give death his eulogy; thy fear fubdu'd;
And labour that first palm of noble minds,
A manly fcorn of terror from the tomb.'
This harvet reap from thy Narciffa's grave.
As poets feign'd trom Ajax' streaming blood
Arofe, with grief inscrib'd, a mournful flow'r ;
Let wifdom bloffom from my mortal wound.
And FIRST, 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 smooth
Our rugged pafs to death; to break those bars
Of terror, and abhorrence, nature throws
Cross our obstructed way; and, thus, to make
Welcome, as SAFE, our port from ev'ry ftorm.
Each friend by fate fnatch'd from us, is a plume
Pluckt from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us ftoop from our aerial heights,
And dampt 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 foratch a little duft,
And fave the world a nuisance. Smitten friends
Are angels fent on errands full of love;
For us they languish, and for us they die :
And fhall they languish, shall they die in vain ?
Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hov'ring fhades,
Which wait the revolution in our hearts?
Shall we difdain their filenr, suft 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 wholfome empire! let it reign,
That kind chaftifer of thy foul in joy!
Its reign will spread thy glorious conquefts far,
And till 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 with of ev'ry hour?
And fong of ex' y joy! furprising truth!
The beaten fpaniel's fondness not fɔ ftrange.
To wave the num'rous Ills that feize on life
As their own property, their lawful prey;
Ere man has meafur'd half his weary age,
His Luxuries have left him no reserve.
No maiden relishes, unbroacht delights;
On cold ferv'd repetitions he fubfifts,
And in the taftelefs Prefent chews the PAST;
Difgufted chews, and scarce can swallow down.
Like lavish ancestors, his earlier years
Have difinherited his future hours,
Which starve on ORTS, and GLEAN their former field, Live ever here, Lorenzo!- -Shocking thought!
So fhocking, they who with, disown it too;
Difown from shame, what they from folly crave.
Live ever in the womb, nor fee the light?
For what live ever here?
With labouring step
To tread our former footsteps; pace the round
Eternal to climb life's worn, heavy wheel,
Which draws up nothing new? to beat, and beat,
The beaten track? to bid each wretched day
The former mock? to furfeit on the SAME,
And yawn our joys? or thank a mifery
For change tho' fad? to fee what we have feen?
Hear, till unheard, the fame old flabber'd tale?
To tafte the tafted, and at each return
Lefs tafteful? O'er our palates to decant
Another vintage? ftrain a flatter year,
Thro' loaded veffels, and a laxer tone?
Crazy machines to grind earth's wafted fruits A
Ill ground, and worse concocted! load, not life!
The Rational foul kennels of excefs!
Still freaming thorough-fairs of dull debauch!
Trembling each gulp, left death fhould fnatch the bowl.
Such of our FINE ONES is the with refin'd!
So would they have it: elegant defire!
Why not invite the bellowing ftalls, and wilds?
But fuch examples might their riot awe.
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