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Gay title of the deepest mifery!

As bodies grow more pond'rous robb'd of life:
Good loft weighs more in grief, than gain'd in joy.
Like bloffom'd trees o'erturn'd by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death ftill lovely, lovelier there;
Far lovelier! pity fwells the tide of love.
And will not the fevere excufe a figh?
Scorn the proud man that is asham'd to weep;
Our tears indulg'd indeed deserve our shame.
Ye that e'er loft an angel! pity me.

Soon as the luftre languish'd in her eye,
Dawning a dimmer day on human fight;
And on her check the refidence of spring,
Pale omen fat, and fcatter'd fears around
On all that faw, (and who could ceafe to gaze,
That once had feen ?)with hafte parental hafte,
I flew, I fnatch'd her from the rigid north,
Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew,
And bore her nearer to the fun. The fun
(As if the fun could envy) check'd his beam,
Deny'd his wonted fuccour, nor with more
Regret beheld her drooping than the bells
Of lilies; faireft lilies, not fo fair!

Queen lilies! and ye painted populace! Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrofial lives; In morn and evʼning dew your beauties bathe, And drink the fun; which gives your cheeks to glow, And outblush (mine excepted) ev'ry fair; You gladlier grew, ambitious of her hand, Which often crop'd your odours, incenfe meet To thought fo pure; her flow'ry state of mind In joy unfall'n. Ye lovely fugitives! Coeval race with man! for man ye fmile; Why not fmile at him too? you fhare 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 paffions bent on aught below,

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Must, foon or late, with anguish turn the scale;
And anguifh after rapture how fevere !
Rapture! bold man! who tempts the wrath divine,
By plucking fruit deny'd to mortal taste,
While here prefuming on the rights of heav'n.
For tranfport doft thou call on ev'ry hour,
LORENZO? At thy friends expence be wife :
Lean not on earth; 'twill pierce thee to the heart;
A braken reed, at beft; but, oft, a fpear;

On its fharp point Peace bleeds; and Hope expires.
Turn, hopeless thought! turu from her. Thought
repell'd,

Refenting rallies, and wakes ev'ry wo.

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'nings joys!
And when blind man pronounc'd thy blifs complete!
And on a foreign fhore! where ftrangers wept!
Strangers to thee! and, more furprizing ftill,
Strangers to kindness, wept: Their eyes let fall
Inhuman tears; ftrange tears! that trickled down
From marble hearts! Obdurate tendernefs!
A tenderness that call'd them more fevere;
In fpite of Nature's foft perfuafion steel'd:
While Nature melted, Superflition rav'd;
That mourn'd the dead, and this deny'd a grave. I

Their fighs incens'd; fighs foreign to the will!
Their will the tyger fuck'd, outrag'd the ftorm.
For, oh the curft ungodlinefs of zeal !
While finful fle/h relented, fpirit nurs'd
In blind Infallibility's embrace,
The fainted fpirit petrify'd the breaft;
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,

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With foft-fufpended ftep; and, muffled deep
In midnight-darknefs, whisper'd my last figh;

I whisper'd what fhould echo through their realms;
Nor writ her name, whofe tomb fhould pierce the fkies:
Prefumptuous fear! how durft I dread her foes,
While Nature's loudeft dictates I obey'd?
Pardon neceffity, blefs'd fhade! 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 favage land her facred duft;
Stamp'd the cure'd foil; and with humanity
(Deny'd NARCISSA) 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-laboured form, erect, divine!
This heav'n affum'd majeftic robe of earth,
He deign'd to wear, who hung the vaft expanfe
With azure bright, and cloth'd the fun in gold,
When ev'ry paffion fleeps that can offend;
When ftrikes us ev'ry motive that can melt;
When man can wreak his rancour uncontroll'd,
That ftrongeft curb on infult and ill-will;
Then, fpleen to duft? the duft of innocence ?
An angel's duft!-This Lucifer transcends :
When he contended for the Patriarch's bones,
'Twas not the ftrife of malice, but of pride;
The ftrife of pontiff pride, not pontiff gall.

Far less than this is fhocking in a race
Moft wretched, but from ftreams 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 ftränge!
Yet oft his courtefies are fmoother wrongs;
Pride brandishes the favours he confers,
And contumelious his humanity.

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What then his 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 rising storm
O'erwhelming turrets threaten ere they fall;
Volcanos 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'ns Sov'reign faves all beings, but himself,
That hideous fight, 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 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 diftinguish'd fate, and cluft'ing there
Thick as the locuft on the land of Nile,

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

How was each circumftance with afpics arm'd!
An afpic, each; and all, an hydra-wo.
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 diftress, distinctly 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 nankind the mourner; carry fighs
Far as the fatal Fame can wing her

way,

And turn the gayeft thought of gayeft age

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Down the right channel, through 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;
Expofe 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 scorn of terror from the tomb."

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This harvest reap from thy NARCISSA's grave, As poets feign, from Ajax' ftreaming blood Arofe, with grief infcrib'd, a mournful flow'r : Let wisdom blossom from my mortal wound. And, firf, of dying friends; what fruit from thefe ? Rich fruit this tempeft in our bofom throws, Few minds will gather in our life ferene; It brings us more than triple aid; and aid To chace our thoughtlessness, fear, pride and guilt. Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud, To damp our brainless ardours; and abate That glare of life, which often blinds the wife, Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth Our rugg'd pafs to death; to break those bars Of terror and abhorrence, Nature throws 'Cross our obftructed way; and, thus, to make Welcome, as fafe, our port from every 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 aërial heights, And, damp'd with omen of our own disease, On drooping pinions of ambition lower'd, Juft fkim earth's furface ere we break it up,

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