And sends the dreadful tidings in the blow.
Is this the flight of fancy? Would it were!
Heav'n's Sovereign saves all beings, but himself,
That hideous sight, a naked human heart.

Fir'd is the muse? And let the muse 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 sing, and I in Him.
But he, nor I, feel more: Past ills, NARCISSA!
Are sunk in Thee, thou recent wound of heart!
Which bleeds with other cares, with other pangs;
Pangs num'rous, as the num'rous ills that swarm'd
O'er thy distinguish'd fate, and, clust'ring There
Thick as the locusts 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 aspics arm'd?
An aspic, Each! and All, an Hydra woe:
What strong Herculean virtue could suffice?
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, distinctly mourn'd, demands
Of grief still more, as heighten'd by the whole.
A grief like this proprietors excludes:
Not friends alone such obsequies deplore;
They make Mankind the mourner; carry sighs
Far as the fatal Fame can wing her way;
And turn the gayest thought of gayest age,
Down their right channel, through 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 Balsamic truths, and healing sentiments, Of all most wanted, and most welcome, here. For gay LORENZO's sake, and for thy own, My soul! "The fruits of dying friends survey; "Expose the vain of life; weigh life and death; "Give death his eulogy; thy fear subdue; "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' streaming blood
Arose, with grief inscrib'd, a mournful flow'r;
Let wisdom blossom from my mortal wound.
And first, of dying friends; what fruit from these?
It brings us more than triple aid; an aid

To chase our thoughtlessness, 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 wise.
Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth
Our rugged pass 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 storm.

up,

Each friend by fate snatch'd from us, is a plume
Pluckt from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us stoop from our aerial heights,
And, dampt with omen of our own decease,
On drooping pinions of ambition lower'd,
Just skim earth's surface, ere we break it
O'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust,
And save the world a nuisance. Smitten friends
Are angels sent on errands full of love;
For us they languish, and for us they die:
And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain?
Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hov'ring shades
Which wait the revolution in our hearts?
Shall we disdain their silent, soft address;
Their posthumous advice, and pious pray'r?
Senseless, as herds that graze their hallow'd graves,
Tread under-foot their agonies and groans;
Frustrate their anguish, and destroy their deaths?
LORENZO ! no; the thought of death indulge;
Give it its wholesome empire! let it reign,
That kind chastiser of thy soul in joy!

Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far,
And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast:
Auspicious Æra! golden days, begin!

The thought of death shall, like a god, inspire.
And why not think of death? Is life the theme
Of ev'ry thought? and wish 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 seize on life
As their own property, their lawful prey;
Ere man has measur'd half his weary stage,
His luxuries have left him no reserve,
No maiden relishes, unbroacht delights;
On cold serv'd repetitions he subsists,
And in the tastless present chews the past;
Disgusted chews, and scarce can swallow down.
Like lavish ancestors, his earlier years

Have disinherited his future hours.

Which starve on orts, and glean their former field.
Live ever here, LORENZO!-shocking thought!
So shocking, they who wish, disown it too;
Disown from shame, what they from folly crave.
Live ever in the womb, nor see the light?
For what live ever here ?-With lab'ring 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 surfeit on the same,
And yawn our joys? Or thank a misery

For change, tho' sad? To see what we have seen?
Hear, till unheard, the same old slabber'd tale?

To taste the tasted, and at each return
Less tasteful? O'er our palates to decant
Another vintage? Strain a flatter year,
Thro' loaded vessels, and a laxer tone?
Crazy machines to grind earth's wasted fruits!
Ill-ground, and worse concocted! Load, not life!

The rational foul kennels of excess !

Still-streaming thorough-fares of dull debauch! Trembling each gulp, lest death should snatch the bowl.

Such of our fine ones is the wish refin'd!
So would they have it: Elegant desire!
Why not invite the bellowing stalls, and wilds?
But such examples might their riot awe.
Thro' want of virtue, that is, want of thought,
(Tho' on bright thought they father all their flights)
To what are they reduc'd? To love, and hate,
The same vain world; to censure, and espouse,
This painted shrew of life, who calls them fool
Each moment of each day; to flatter bad
Thro' dread of worse; to cling to this rude rock
Barren, to them, of good, and sharp with ills,
And hourly blacken'd with impending storms,
And infamous for wrecks of human hope
Scar'd at the gloomy gulph, that yawns beneath,
Such are their triumphs! such their pangs of joy!

'Tis time, high time, to shift this dismal scene.
This hugg'd, this hideous state, what art can cure?
One only; but that one, what all may reach;
VIRTUE-she, wonder-working goddess! charms
That rock to bloom; and tames the painted shrew;
And what will more surprise, LORENZO! gives
To life's sick, nauseous iteration, change;
And straitens nature's circle to a line.

Believ'st thou this, LORENZO? lend an ear,
A patient ear, thou'lt blush to disbelieve.