My soul, which flies to Thee, her truft, her treasure, As misers 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, 45 (A mind that fain would wander from its woe) Lead it through various scenes of Life and Death ; And from each scene, the noblest truths inspire. Nor less inspire my Conduct, than my Song ; Teach my best reason, reason; my best will

50 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.

The bell strikes One. We take no note of time 55 But from its loss. To give it then a tongue, Is wife in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours : Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. 60 It is the signal that demands dispatch : 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 surely mine!

65 And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

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

70 B 3

Who

Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From different natures marvelously mixt,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds !
Distinguish'a link in Being's endless chain !
Midway from Nothing to the Deity!

75
A beam ethereal, fully'd, and absorpt!
Though fully'd and dishonour'd, still divine !
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal ! insect infinite !

80 A worm! a god !- I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost! at home a stranger, Thought wanders up and down, surpriz'd, aghaft, And wondering at her own : How reason reels ! O what a miracle to man is man,

85 Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what dread! Alternately transported, and alarm'd! What can preserve my life ! or what destroy ! An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there.

90 'Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof: While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread, What though my soul fantastic measures trod O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathless woods ; or, down the craggy steep 95 Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool; Or scal'd the cliff; or danc'd on hollow winds, With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain ? Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature Of subtler essence than the trodden clod;

100

110

Active, aërial, towering, unconfin'd,
Unfetter'd with her grofs companions fall.
Ey'n filent night proclaims my soul immortal :
Ev'n silent night proclaims eternal day.
For human weal, heaven husbands all events; 105
Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.

Why then their loss deplore, that are not lost?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,
In infidel distress? 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 desart, this the solitude :

115
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 Substance; the reverse is folly's creed :
How solid all, where change shall 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 shut, and death,

125 Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar, This gross 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,

130

I 20

The future embryo, slumbering 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,

140 On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God. What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow, In His full beam, and ripen for the just, Where momentary ages are no more ! Where time, and pain, and chance, and death expire! 145 And is it in the flight of threescore years, To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust? A soul immortal, spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in ftrenuous idleness,

150 Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm’d, At ought this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

Where falls this censure? It o'erwhelms myself; 155 How was my heart incrusted by the world ! O how self- fetter'd was my groveling soul ! How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round In filken thought, which reptile Fancy spun, Till darken'd Reason lay quite clouded o'er 160

170

175

With soft conceit of endless comfort here, ,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies !

Night-visions may befriend (as sung above):
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt
Of things impossible ! (Could sleep do more?) 165
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys !
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective !
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. 180

Oye bleft scenes of permanent delight! Full, above measure ! lasting, beyond bound ! A perpetuity of bliss is bliss. Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end, That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy, 185 And quite unparadise the realms of light. Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres; The baleful influence of whose giddy dance Sheds fad viciffitude on all beneath. Here teems with revolutions

every

190 And

hour ;