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My foul, which flies to Thee, her truft, her treasure,
As mifers to their gold, while others rest.

Through this opaque of Nature, and of Soul,
This double night, transmit one pitying ray,
To lighten, and to chear. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe)
Lead it through various scenes of Life and Death;
And from each scene, the nobleft truths inspire.
Nor lefs infpire my Conduct, than my Song;
Teach my best reason, reason; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

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The bell ftrikes One. We take no note of time 55 But from its lofs. To give it then a tongue,

Is wife in man.

As if an angel fpoke,

I feel the folemn found. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours:

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. 60

It is the fignal that demands difpatch:

How much is to be done? My hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-On what? a fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how furely mine!

And can eternity belong to me,

Poor penfioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How paffing wonder He, who made him fuch!

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Who centred in our make such strange extremes!
From different natures marvelously mixt,
Connexion exquifite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in Being's endless chain!
Midway from Nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, fully'd, and absorpt!
Though fully'd and difhonour'd, ftill divine!
Dim miniature of greatness abfolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of duft !
Helpless immortal! infect infinite!
A worm! a god!-I tremble at myself,
And in myself am loft! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, furpriz'd, aghaft,
And wondering at her own: How reason reels!
O what a miracle to- man is man,
Triumphantly diftrefs'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported, and alarm'd!

What can preferve my life! or what destroy!
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

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'Tis paft conjecture; all things rife in proof: While o'er my limbs fleep's foft dominion spread, What though my foul fantastic measures trod O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathlefs woods; or, down the craggy steep Hurl'd headlong, fwam with pain the mantled pool; Or fcal'd the cliff; or danc'd on hollow winds, With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain? Her ceafelefs flight, though devious, fpeaks her nature Of fubtler effence than the trodden clod;

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Active, aërial, towering, unconfin’d,
Unfetter'd with her grofs companions fall.
Ev'n filent night proclaims my foul immortal :
Ev'n filent night proclaims eternal day.
For human weal, heaven husbands all events;
Dull fleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.
Why then their lofs deplore, that are not loft?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,
In infidel diftrefs? Are Angels there?

Slumbers, rak'd up in dust, ethereal fire?

They live! they greatly live a life on earth
Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an eye
Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall

On me, more justly number'd with the dead.
This is the defart, this the folitude:

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How populous, how vital, is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,

The vale funereal, the fad cypress gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty shades!
All, all on earth, is Shadow, all beyond
Is Subftance; the reverfe is folly's creed:

How folid all, where change fhall be no more!
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,

The twilight of our day, the vestibule;

Life's theatre as yet is fhut, and death,
Strong death, alone can heave the maffy bar,
This grofs impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryos of existence free,
From real life, but little more remote
Is he, not yet a candidate for light,

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The future embryo, flumbering in his fire.
Embryos we must be, till we burst the shell,
Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life,
The life of gods, O transport! and of man.

Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts; 135 Inters celestial hopes without one figh.

Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by heaven
To fly at infinite; and reach it there,
Where Seraphs gather immortality,

On life's fair tree, faft by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrofial clustering glow,
In His full beam, and ripen for the juft,
Where momentary ages are no more!

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Where time, and pain, and chance, and death expire! 145
And is it in the flight of threefcore years,
To push eternity from human thought,
And fmother fouls immortal in the duft?
A foul immortal, fpending all her fires,
Wafting her strength in ftrenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd,
At ought this fcene can threaten or indulge,
Refembles ocean into tempeft wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

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Where falls this cenfure? It o'erwhelms myself; 155
How was my heart incrusted by the world!
O how felf-fetter'd was my groveling foul!

How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round
In filken thought, which reptile Fancy fpun,
Till darken'd Reafon lay quite clouded o'er

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With foft conceit of endless comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!
Night-vifions may befriend (as fung above):
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt
Of things impoffible! (Could fleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of ftable pleasures on the toffing wave!
Eternal funfhine in the storms of life!

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How richly were my noon-tide trances hung

With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perfpective !

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Till at death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,

Starting I woke, and found myself undone.

Where now my phrenzy's pompous furniture?
The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall.
Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!
The Spider's most attenuated thread:
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie..

On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.

O ye bleft fcenes of permanent delight! Full, above measure! lafting, beyond bound! A perpetuity of bliss is blifs.

Could you, fo rich in rapture, fear an end,,

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That ghaftly thought would drink up all your joy, 185 And quite unparadife the realms of light.

Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres;

The baleful influence of whofe giddy dance

Sheds fad viciffitude on all beneath.

Here teems with revolutions

every hour ;

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