That awful Independent on To-morrow!
Whofe Work is done; who triumphs in the Paft;
Whofe Yesterdays look backward with a Smile;
Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly;
That common, but opprobrious Lot! Paft Hours,
If not by Guilt, yet wound us by their Flight,
If Folly bounds our Profpect by the Grave,
All Feeling of Futurity benumb'd;

All God-like Paffion for Eternals quencht;
All Relish of Realities expir'd;

Renounc'd all Correspondence with the Skies;
Our Freedom chain'd; quite wingless our Defire;
In Senfe dark-prifon'd all that ought to foar;
Prone to the Centre; crawling in the Dust;
Difmounted ev'ry great and glorious Aim;
Embruted ev'ry Faculty divine;

Heart-bury'd in the Rubbish of the World.
The World, that Gulph of Souls, immortal Souls,
Souls elevate, Angelic, wing'd with Fire

To reach the distant Skies, and triumph there
On Thrones, which shall not mourn their Masters chang'd;
Tho' we from Earth; Ethereal, They that fell.
Such Veneration due, O Man, to Man.

Who venerate themselves, the World despise.
For what, gay Friend! is this efcutcheon'd World,
Which hangs out DEATH in one eternal Night?
A Night, that glooms us in the Noon-tide Ray,
And wraps our Thought, at Banquets, in the Shroud.
Life's little Stage is a fmall Eminence,

Inch-high the Grave above; that Home of Man,
Where dwells the Multitude; We gaze around;
We read their Monuments; we figh; and while
We figh, we fink; and are what we deplor’d;
Lamenting, or Lamented, all our Lot!

Is Death at Distance? No: He has been on thee;
C

And

And giv'n fure Earnest of his final Blow.

Thofe Hours, which lately fmil'd, where are they now?
Pallid to Thought, and ghaftly! drown'd, all drown'd
In that great Deep, which nothing difembogues!
And, dying, they bequeath'd thee fmall Renown.
The reft are on the Wing: How fleet their Flight!
Already has the fatal Train took Fire;

A Moment, and the World's blown up to thee;
The Sun is Darkness, and the Stars are Duft.

'Tis greatly wife to talk with our past Hours;
And ask them, what Report they bore to Heaven;
And how they might have borne more welcome News.
Their Answers form what Men Experience call;
If Wisdom's Friend, her beft; if not, worft Foe.
O reconcile them! Kind Experience cries,

"There's nothing here, but what as nothing weighs ;
"The more our Joy, the more we know it vain ;
"And by Succefs are tutor❜d to Despair."
Nor is it only thus, but must be fo.

Who knows not this, tho' Grey, is ftill a Child.
Loofe then from Earth the Grasp of fond Defire,
Weigh Anchor, and fome happier Clime explore.
Art thou fo moor'd thou canst not difengage,
Nor give thy Thoughts a Ply to future Scenes?
Since, by Life's paffing Breath, blown up from Earth,
Light, as the Summer's Duft, we take in Air
A Moment's giddy Flight, and fall again;
Join the dull Mafs, increase the trodden Soil,
And fleep till Earth herself shall be no more;
Since Then (as Emmets, their fmall World o'erthrown)
We, fore-amaz'd, from out Earth's Ruins crawl,
And rife to Fate extreme of Foul or Fair,

As Man's own Choice (Controuler of the Skies!)
As Man's defpotic Will, perhaps one Hour,
(O how Omnipotent is Time!) decrees;

7

Should

Should not each Warning give a strong Alarm?
Warning, far lefs than that of Bofom torn
From Bofom, bleeding o'er the facred Dead!
Should not each Dial trike us as we pafs,
Portentous, as the written Wall, which ftruck,
O'er midnight Bowls, the proud Affyrian pale,
Ere-while high-flufht with Infolence and Wine?
Like That, the Dial fpeaks; and points to thee,
LORENZO! loth to break thy Banquet up :
"O Man, thy Kingdom is departing from thee;
"And, while it lafts, is emptier than my Shade."
Its filent Language fuch: Nor need'st thou call
Thy Magi, to decypher what it means.

Know, like the Median, Fate is in thy Walls:
Doft afk, How? Whence? Belshazzar-like, amaz'd!
Man's Make inclofes the fure Seeds of Death;
Life feeds the Murderer: Ingrate! he thrives
On her own Meal, and then his Nurfe devours.
But here, LORENZO, the Delufion lies;
That Solar Shadow, as it measures Life,
It Life refembles too: Life fpeeds away
From Point to Point, tho' feeming to stand still.
The cunning Fugitive is fwift by Stealth:
Too fubtle is the Movement to be feen;
Yet foon Man's Hour is up, and we are gone.
Warnings point out our Danger; Gnomons, Time:
As these are ufelefs when the Sun is fet;

So those, but when more glorious Reafon fhines.
Reafon fhould judge in all; in Reason's Eye,
That Sedentary Shadow travels hard.
But fuch our Gravitation to the Wrong,
So prone our Hearts to whisper what we wish,
'Tis later with the Wife, than he's aware;
A Wilmington goes flower than the Sun:
And all Mankind mistake their Time of Day;

Ev'n Age itself. Fresh Hopes are hourly fown
In furrow'd Brows. So gentle Life's Defcent,
We shut our Eyes, and think it is a Plain.
We take fair Days in Winter, for the Spring;
And turn our Bleffings into Bane. Since oft
Man muft compute that Age He cannot feel,
He fcarce believes he's older for his Years.
Thus, at Life's latest Eve, we keep in Store
One Disappointment fure, to crown the Reft;
The Disappointment of a promis'd Hour.

On This, or Similar, PHILANDER! Thou
Whofe Mind was moral, as the Preacher's Tongue;
And ftrong, to wield all Science, worth the Name;
How often we talk'd down the Summer's Sun,
And cool'd our Paffions by the breezy Stream!
How often thaw'd and shorten'd Winter's Eve,
By Conflict kind, that struck out latent Truth,
Beft found, fo fought; to the Reclufe more coy!
Thoughts difintangle, paffing o'er the Lip;
Clean runs the Thread; if not, 'tis thrown away,
Or kept to tie up Nonsense for a Song ;
Song, fashionably fruitlefs; fuch as stains
The Fancy, and unhallow'd Paffion fires;
Chiming her Saints to Cytherea's Fane.

Know'ft thou, LORENZO! what a Friend contains ? As Bees mixt Nectar draw from fragrant Flow'rs, So Men from FRIENDSHIP, Wisdom and Delight; Twins ty'd by Nature; if they part, they die. Haft thou no Friend to fet thy Mind abroach? Good Senfe will ftagnate. Thoughts fhut up, want Air, And fpoil, like Bales unopen'd to the Sun.

Had Thought been All, fweet Speech had been deny'd; Speech, Thought's Canal! Speech, Thought's Criterion Thought in the Mine, may come forth Gold, or Drofs; [too! When coin'd in Word, we know its real Worth.

If fterling, ftore it for thy future Ufe;
'Twill buy thee Benefit; perhaps, Renown.
Thought, too, deliver'd, is the more poffet;
Teaching, we learn; and, giving, we retain
The Births of Intellect; when dumb, forgot.
Speech ventilates our intellectual Fire;
Speech burnishes our Mental Magazine;
Brightens, for Ornament; and whets, for Use.
What Numbers, fheath'd in Erudition, lie
Plung'd to the Hilts in venerable Tomes,
And rufted in; who might have borne an Edge,
And play'd a sprightly Beam, if born to Speech;
If born bleft Heirs of half their Mother's Tongue!
'Tis Thought's Exchange, which, like th'alternate Push
Of Waves conflicting, breaks the learned Scum,
And defecates the Student's ftanding Pool.

In Contemplation is his proud Resource ?
"Tis poor, as proud, by Converse unfuftain'd.
Rude Thought runs wild in Contemplation's Field;
Converse, the Menage, breaks it to the Bit
Of due Reftraint; and Emulation's Spur
Gives graceful Energy, by Rivals aw'd.
'Tis Converse qualifies for Solitude;
As Exercise, for falutary Reft.
By that untutor'd, Contemplation raves;
And Nature's Fool, by Wisdom's is outdone.
Wisdom, tho' richer than Peruvian Mines,
And fweeter than the fweet Ambrofial Hive,
What is the, but the Means of Happiness?
That unobtain❜d, than Folly more a Fool;
A melancholy Fool, without her Bells.
Friendship, the Means of Wifdom, richly gives
The precious End, which makes our Wisdom wife.
Nature, in Zeal for human Amity,

Denies, or damps, an undivided Joy.