With pious sacrilege, a grave I stole ;
With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd;
Short in my duty! coward in my grief!
More like her murderer, than friend, I crept,
With soft-suspended step, and muffled deep
In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh.
I whisper'd what should echo through their realms;
Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the
skies.

Presumptuous fear! How durst I dread her foes,
While Nature's loudest dictates I obey'd?
Pardon necessity, blest shade! Of grief
And indignation rival bursts I pour'd;
Half execration mingled with my prayer;
Kindled at man, while I his God ador'd;
Sore grudg'd the savage land her sacred dust;
Stampt the curst soil; and with humanity
(Denied Narcissa) wish'd them all a grave.

Glows my resentment into guilt? What guilt
Can equal violations of the dead?
The dead how sacred! Sacred is the dust
Of this Heaven-labor'd form, erect, divine!
This Heaven-assum'd majestic robe of Earth,
He deign'd to wear, who hung the vast expanse
With azure bright, and cloth'd the Sun in gold.
When every passion sleeps that can offend;
When strikes us every motive that can melt;
When man can wreak his rancor uncontroll'd,
That strongest curb on insult and ill-will;
Then, spleen to dust! the dust of innocence!
An angel's dust!-This Lucifer transcends;
When he contended for the patriarch's bones,
"Twas not the strife of malice, but of pride;
The strife of pontiff pride, not pontiff gall.
For less than this is shocking in a race
Most wretched, but from streams of mutual love;
And uncreated, but for love divine,

And, but for love divine, this moment lost,
By fate resorb'd, and sunk in endless night.
Man hard of heart to man! of horrid things
Most horrid! 'Mid stupendous, highly strange!
Yet oft his courtesies are smoother wrongs;
Pride brandishes the favors he confers,
And contumelious his humanity;

What then his vengeance? Hear it not, ye stars! And thou, pale Moon! turn paler at the sound; Man is to man the sorest, surest ill.

A previous blast foretells the rising storm;
O'erwhelming turrets threaten ere they fall;
Volcanoes bellow ere they disembogue;
Earth trembles ere her yawning jaws devour;
And smoke betrays the wide-consuming fire:
Ruin from man is most conceal'd when near,
And sends the dreadful tidings in the blow.
Is this the flight of fancy? Would it were!
Heaven'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 numerous, as the numerous ills that swarm'd
O'er thy distinguish'd fate, and, clustering 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 hush'd Cimmerian vaie,
Where darkness, brooding o'er unfinish'd 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 labor 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 flower;
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 every storm.
Each friend by fate snatch'd from us, is a plume
Pluck'd from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us stoop from our aërial 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 up,
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 hovering shades,
Which wait the revolution in our hearts?
Shall we disdain their silent, soft address;
Their posthumous advice, and pious prayer?
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 era! golden days, begin!

The thought of death shall, like a god, inspire.
And why not think on death? Is life the theme

Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres. Through chinks, styl'd organs, dim life peeps light;

at

Death bursts th' involving cloud, and all is day;
All eye, all ear, the disembodied power.
Death has feign'd evils, Nature shall not feel;
Life, ill substantial, Wisdom cannot shun.
Is not the mighty Mind, that son of Heaven?
By tyrant Life dethron'd, imprison'd, pain'd?
By Death enlarg'd, ennobled, deified?
Death but entombs the body; life the soul.

"Is Death then guiltless? How he marks his way
With dreadful waste of what deserves to shine!
Art, genius, fortune, elevated power!
With various lustres these light up the world,
Which Death puts out, and darkens human race."
I grant, Lorenzo! this indictment just :

The sage, peer, potentate, king, conqueror!
Death humbles these; more barbarous life, the man.
Life is the triumph of our mouldering clay;
Death, of the spirit infinite! divine!
Death has no dread, but what frail life imparts;
Nor life true joy, but what kind death improves.
No bliss has life to boast, till death can give
Far greater; life's a debtor to the grave,
Dark lattice! letting in eternal day.

Lorenzo! blush at fondness for a life, Which sends celestial souls on errands vile, To cater for the sense; and serve at boards, Where every ranger of the wilds, perhaps Each reptile, justly claims our upper hand. Luxurious feast! a soul, a soul immortal, In all the dainties of a brute bemir'd! Lorenzo! blush at terror for a death, Which gives thee to repose in festive bowers, Where nectars sparkle, angels minister, And more than angels share, and raise, and crown, And eternize, the birth, bloom, bursts of bliss. What need I more? O Death, the palm is thine.

Then welcome, Death! thy dreaded harbingers, Age, and disease; disease, though long my guest; That plucks my nerves, those tender strings of life; Which, pluck'd a little more, will toll the bell, That call my few friends to my funeral; Where feeble Nature drops, perhaps, a tear, While Reason and Religion, better taught, Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb With wreath triumphant. Death is victory; It binds in chains the raging ills of life: Lust and ambition, wrath and avarice, Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power. That ills corrosive, cares importunate,

Are not immortal too, O Death! is thine. Our day of dissolution!-name it right; "Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich And ripe. What though the sickle, sometimes keen,

Just scars us as we reap the golden grain?
More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound.
Birth's feeble cry, and Death's deep dismal groan,
Are slender tributes low-tax'd Nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each, of life!
But O! the last the former so transcends,
Life dies, compar'd; life lives beyond the grave.
And feel I, Death! no joy from thought of thee?
Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires
With every nobler thought, and fairer deed!
Death, the deliverer, who rescues man!
Death, the rewarder, who the rescued crowns!
Death, that absolves my birth; a curse without it!

Rich death, that realizes all my cares,
Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera!
Death, of all pain the period, not of joy;
Joy's source, and subject, still subsists unhurt:
One, in my soul; and one, in her great Sire;
Though the four winds were warring for my dust.
Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night,
Though prison'd there, my dust too I reclaim,
(To dust when drop proud Nature's proudest
spheres,)

And live entire. Death is the crown of life:
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain;
Were death denied, to live would not be life;
Were death denied, e'en fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rise, we reign!
Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies;
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight:
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost.
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When shall I die?-When shall I live for ever?

NIGHT THE FOURTH.

THE CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH.

Containing our only Cure for the Fear of Death; and proper Sentiments of that inestimable Blessing.

TO THE HONORABLE MR. YORKE.

A MUCH-INDEBTED Muse, O Yorke! intrudes.
Amid the smiles of fortune, and of youth,
Thine ear is patient of a serious song.-
How deep implanted in the breast of man
The dread of death! I sing its sovereign cure.

Why start at Death? Where is he? Death arriv'd,

Is past; not come or gone, he's never here.
Ere hope, sensation fails; black-boding man
Receives, not suffers, Death's tremendous blow.
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave;
The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm ;
These are the bugbears of a winter's eve,
The terrors of the living, not the dead.
Imagination's fool, and error's wretch,

Man makes a death, which Nature never made;
Then on the point of his own fancy falls;
And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.

But were Death frightful, what has age to fear?
If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe,
And shelter in his hospitable gloom.

I scarce can meet a monument, but holds
My younger; every date cries- Come away."
And what recalls me? Look the world around,
And tell me what: the wisest cannot tell.
Should any born of woman give his thought
Full range on just dislike's unbounded field;
Of things, the vanity; of men, the flaws;
Flaws in the best; the many, flaw all o'er;
As leopards, spotted, or, as Ethiops, dark;
Vivacious ill; good dying immature;
(How immature, Narcissa's marble tells!)
And at his death bequeathing endless pain;
His heart, though bold, would sicken at the sight,
And spend itself in sighs, for future scenes.
But grant to life (and just it is to grant
To lucky life) some perquisites of joy ;

A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale,
Long-rifled life of sweet can yield no more,
But from our comment on the comedy,
Pleasing reflections on parts well sustain'd,
Or purpos'd emendations where we fail'd,
Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge,
When, on their exit, souls are bid unrobe,
Toss Fortune back her tinsel, and her plume,
And drop this mask of flesh behind the scene.

With me, that time is come; my world is dead;
A new world rises, and new manners reign:
Foreign comedians, a spruce band! arrive,
To push me from the scene, or hiss me there.
What a pert race starts up! the strangers gaze,
And I at them; my neighbor is unknown;
Nor that the worst: Ah me! the dire effect
Of loitering here, of death defrauded long;
Of old so gracious (and let that suffice,) ·
My very master knows me not.—

Shall I dare say, peculiar is the fate?
I've been so long remember'd, I'm forgot.
An object ever pressing dims the sight,
And hides behind its ardor to be seen.
When in his courtiers' ears I pour my plaint,
They drink it as the nectar of the great;
And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow.
Refusal! canst thou wear a smoother form?

Indulge me, nor conceive I drop my theme:
Who cheapens life, abates the fear of death:
Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy,
Court favor, yet untaken, I besiege;
Ambition's ill-judged effort to be rich.
Alas! ambition makes my little less;
Embittering the possest. Why wish for more?
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst;
Philosophy's reverse; and health's decay.
Were I as plump as stall'd theology,
Wishing would waste me to this shade again.
Were I as wealthy as a South-sea dream,
Wishing is an expedient to be poor.
Wishing, that constant hectic of a fool;
Caught at a court; purg'd off by purer air,
And simpler diet; gifts of rural life!

Blest be that hand divine, which gently laid
My heart at rest, beneath this humble shed.
The world's a stately bark, on dangerous seas,
With pleasure seen, but boarded at our peril;
Here, on a single plank, thrown safe ashore,
I hear the tumult of the distant throng,
As that of seas remote, or dying storms:
And meditate on scenes, more silent still;
Pursue my theme, and fight the fear of death.
Here, like a shepherd gazing from his hut,
Touching his reed, or leaning on his staff,
Eager ambition's fiery chase I see;

I see the circling hunt, of noisy men,
Burst law's inclosure, leap the mounds of right,
Pursuing, and pursued, each other's prey;
As wolves, for rapine; as the fox, for wiles;
Till Death, that mighty hunter, earths them all.
Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?
What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame?
Earth's highest station ends in, "Here he lies,"
And "Dust to dust" concludes her noblest song.
If this song lives, posterity shall know
One, though in Britain born, with courtiers bred,
Who thought e'en gold might come a day too late;
Nor on his subtle death-bed plann'd his scheme
For future vacancies in church or state;
Some avocation deeming it-to die,

Unbit by rage canine of dying rich;
Guilt's blunder! and the loudest laugh of Hell.
O my coëvals! remnants of yourselves!
Poor human ruins, tottering o'er the grave!
Shall we, shall aged men, like aged trees,
Strike deeper their vile root, and closer cling,
Still more enamour'd of this wretched soil?
Shall our pale, wither'd hands, be still stretch'd out,
Trembling, at once, with eagerness and age?
With avarice and convulsions, grasping hard?
Grasping at air! for what has Earth beside?
Man wants but little; nor that little, long:
How soon must he resign his very dust,
Which frugal Nature lent him for an hour!
Years unexperienc'd rush on numerous ills;
And soon as man, expert from time, has found
The key of life, it opes the gates of death.

When in this vale of years I backward look,
And miss such numbers, numbers too of such
Firmer in health, and greener in their age,
And stricter on their guard, and fitter far
To play life's subtle game, I scarce believe
I still survive; and am I fond of life,
Who scarce can think it possible, I live?
Alive by miracle! or, what is next,
Alive by Mead! if I am still alive,
Who long have buried what gives life to live
Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought.
Life's lee is not more shallow than impure
And vapid; sense and reason show the door,
Call for my bier, and point me to the dust.

O thou great Arbiter of life and death!
Nature's immortal, immaterial Sun!
Whose all-prolific beam late call'd me forth
From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay
The worm's inferior, and, in rank, beneath
The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,
And triumph in existence; and could know
No motive, but my bliss; and hast ordain'd
A rise in blessing! with the patriarch's joy,
Thy call I follow to the land unknown;
I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust;
Or life, or death, is equal; neither weighs:
All weight in this-O let me live to thee!

Though Nature's terrors, thus, may be represt; Still frowns grim Death; guilt points the tyrant's

spear.

And whence all human guilt? From death forgot.
Ah me! too long I set at nought the swarm
Of friendly warnings, which around me flew ;
And smil'd, unsmitten: small my cause to smile!
Death's admonitions, like shafts upward shot,
More dreadful by delay, the longer ere

They strike our hearts, the deeper is their wound;
O think how deep, Lorenzo! here it stings:
Who can appease its anguish? how it burns!
What hand the barb'd, envenom'd thought can draw?
What healing hand can pour the balm of peace,
And turn my sight undaunted on the tomb?

With joy-with grief, that healing hand I see ;
Ah! too conspicuous! it is fix'd on high.
On high ?-What means my frenzy? I blaspheme;
Alas! how low! how far beneath the skies!
The skies it form'd; and now it bleeds for me—
But bleeds the balm I want-Yet still it bleeds;
Draw the dire steel-ah no! the dreadful blessing
What heart or can sustain, or dares forego!
There hangs all human hope; that nail supports
The falling universe: that gone, we drop;