I NIGHT THOUGHTS 
 
 ON 
 
 TL, EATH, AND IM3I0R 
 
 , BY EDWARD YOUNG, LL. D, ^ r^ 
 
 V TWO VOLLMts. 
 
 VOL. L 
 
 XEW'YOnK: 
 
 PCBtlBHES BT RlCnARD SCOT I 
 
 2T6 Pearl-Street. 
 
 Itj. 
 
 m 
 
 'ffW^i^-
 
 .it-%-}ii.'> yy^i^fM^mih^^'\ 
 
 
 
 ^Cl/^'fAlf/'^'/^V/.Vj^l/M.
 
 ^^^^^^^^ 
 
 ^, . ^M 
 
 
 
 ruMi-r/ied. l>i/JlicAard Scott:. 
 J8J6.
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS 
 
 ON 
 
 FE, DEATH, jyD IMMORTALITY 
 
 CY EDWARD YOUNG, LL. D. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL, I. 
 
 '«.«"«,»«**^,H'**n'*».i " * ' ' ■ 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY RICHARD SCOTT. 
 £Tt) Pearl-Street. 
 
 1816.
 
 J*. Makks. Pnkla .
 
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 DR. EDWARD YOUNG 
 
 This celebrated and excellent writer was the son 
 of Dr. Edward Young, a learned and eminent di- 
 vine, who was Dean of Sarura, Fellow of Winches- 
 ter College, and Rector of Uphani, in Hampshire. 
 Our author was born atUpham, in the year 1G31, 
 and had his education at Winchester College, till 
 he was chosen on the foundation of Xew College, 
 Oxford, October 13, 1T03, but removed in Ies5 
 than a year to Corpus Chrlsti, where he entered 
 himself a Gentleman Commoner. 
 
 Archbishop Tennison put him into a law fellow- 
 ship in 1703, in the college of All Souls. He took 
 the degree of Bachelor in 1714, and became LL. D. 
 in 1719. Hi? tragedy of Busiris came out the same 
 year ; the Revenge in 17'21 ; the Brothers in 1723 ; 
 and soon after his elegant poem of the Last Day, 
 which engaged the greater attention for being writ- 
 ten by a layman. The Force of Religion, or Van- 
 quished Love, a poem, also gave much pleasure. 
 These works procured him the friendship of some
 
 4 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 among the nobility, and tbie Patronage of the Duke 
 of Wharton, by whom he was induced to stand a 
 candidate for a scat in pariiament for Cirencester, 
 Lut "without success. The bias of his mind was 
 strongly turned towards divinity, which drew him 
 away from the law, before he had begun to prac- 
 tice. On his taking orders, he was appointed chap- 
 lain in ordinary to George II. in April, 1T28. His 
 first work in his new character was a vindication of 
 Providence, published, as well as his Estimate of 
 Human Life, in quarto. Soon after, in 1730, hig 
 college presented him to the Rectory of Welwyn, 
 in Hertfordshire, worth 300/. per annum, besides 
 the lordship of the manor which pertained to it. He 
 married Lady Betty Lee, widow of Col. Lee, in 
 1731. She was daughter of the Earl of Lichfield. 
 By her he had a son. 
 
 Notwithstanding the high estimation in which 
 he was held, his faaiiliar intercourse with many of 
 the fir?t rank, his being a great favourite of Frede- 
 ric Prince of Wales, and paying a pretty constant 
 attendance at court, fee never rose to higher prefer- 
 ment, if, however, we except his being made clerk 
 of the closet to the Princess Dowager of Wales in 
 1761, when he was fourscore years of age. 
 
 His fme poem of the Night Thoughts, it is well 
 known, was occasioned by a family distress i the 
 loss of his wife and the two chihiren^ a son and a 
 daughter, whom she had by her first husband : these 
 all died within a short time of each other in 1741. 
 The son-in-law is characterized in this work by th« 
 name of Philander, ami the young lady, who sunk
 
 DR. KOWAfiD TOITNC. 5 
 
 into a decline through grief for the loss of her moth- 
 er, by that of Narcissa. He removed her in hope of 
 her deriving benefit from a warmer cliinate. to 
 Montpelier, in the south of France ; but she died 
 soon after tiieir arrival in tliat city. The circum- 
 stance of his being obliged to bury her in a field by 
 night, not being allowed interment in achurch-yard, 
 on account of her being a protestaat, is idelibly re- 
 corded in Night III. of this divine poem. 
 
 He was upwards of eighty when he wrote hi.> Con- 
 jectures on Original Composition, in which many 
 beauties appear, notwithstanding the age of its au- 
 tlior ; aad Resignation, his last poem, coiUain3 
 proofs in every stanza, that it was not written with 
 decayed faculties. He died at the parsonage-lioti.'^e, 
 at Welwyn, April 12, 1765, aged eighty-four years, 
 and was buried under the altar-piece of that church, 
 by the ?ide of hi?* wife. By his own desire he v.as 
 followed by all the poor of the parish without any 
 tolling of the bells, or any person appearing at his 
 funeral in mourning. He had caused all his manu- 
 scripts to be destroyed before his death. He left 
 the whole of his fortune, which was pretty consid- 
 erable, with the exception of a few legacies, to his 
 »on, !Mr. Frederic Young, though he would never 
 gee him in his life-time, owing to his displeasure at 
 bis imprudent conduct at college, for which he had 
 been expelled. 
 
 His character was that of the true Christian Di- 
 vine ; his heart was in his profession. It is report- 
 ed, that once preaching in his turn at St. James's, 
 and being unable to gain attention, he sat down
 
 () MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and burst into tears. His conversation was of the 
 same nature as his works, and shewed a solemn cast 
 of thought to be natural to him: death, futurity, 
 judgment, eternity, were his common topics. "When 
 at home in the country, he spent many hours in the 
 day walking among the graves in the church-yard. 
 In his garden he had an alcove, painted as if with 
 a bench to repose on ; on approaching near enough 
 to discover the deception, the following motto was 
 seen : 
 
 " Invisibilia non decipiunt." 
 '■'' The unseen tjjings do not deceive us." 
 
 In his poem of the Last Day, one of his earliest 
 works, he calls his muse " the Melancholy Maid, 
 
 " whom dismal scenes dcli^lit, 
 " Frequent at tombs, and in the realms of night." 
 
 Grafton is said by Spence to have made him a pre- 
 sent of a human skull, with a candle in it, to serve 
 him for a lamp ; and he is reported to have used it. 
 Yet he promoted an assembly and bowling-green in 
 his parish, and often attended them. He would in- 
 dulge in occasional sallies of wit, of which his well- 
 known epigram on Voltaire* is a specimen; but 
 perhaps there was more of indignation than pleasan- 
 try In it, as his satire was ever pointed against inde- 
 cency and Irreligion. His satires, intituled the 
 
 * " Thou art so witty, profligate, and thin, 
 
 " Thoi! seem'st a Milton wiih his Death and Sin."
 
 DR. EDWARD YOUNG. 7 
 
 Love of Fame, or the Universal Passion, is a great 
 performance. The shafts of his wit are directed 
 against the folly of being devoted to the fashion, 
 and aiming to appear what we are not. We meet 
 here with smoothness of style, pointed sentences, 
 solid sentiments, and the sharpness of resistless 
 truth. 
 
 The Night Thoughts abound in the most exalted 
 flights, the utmost stretch of human thought which 
 is the great excellence of Young's poetry. " In his 
 Night Thoughts,'' says a great critic, '' He has ex- 
 hibited a very wide display of original poetry, va- 
 riegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, 
 a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fan- 
 cy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour." 
 It must be allowed, however, that many of these fine 
 thoughts are overcast with the gloom of melancho- 
 ly, so as to have an eflect rather to be dreaded 
 hy minds of a morbid hue : they paint notwithstan- 
 ding, with the most lively fancy, the feelings of 
 the heart, the vanity of human things, its fleeting 
 honours and enjoyments, and contain the strongest 
 «.rguments in support of the immortality of the soul.
 
 #
 
 THE 
 
 COMPLAINT. 
 
 wxvw 
 
 NIGHT. I. 
 
 vwvw 
 
 LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY. 
 
 TO THE niGHT HOXOTTRABLE ARTHrR ONSLOW, 
 ESa. SPEAKER OE THE HOUSE OF COMMO^'S. 
 
 Tir'd Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep ! 
 He, like the world, his ready visit pays 
 Where fortune smiles ; the wretched he forsakes : 
 Swift on his downy pinions flies from woe, 
 And lights on lids unsully'd with a tear. 
 
 From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose 
 I wake : how happy they who wake no niQV&W 
 Yet that were vain, if dreams infest tl-.e grave. 
 I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams 
 Tumultuous; where my wreck 'd desponding thoH 
 From wave to wave of fancy'd misery, 
 At random drove, her helm of reason lost, 
 Tho\ now restor'd, His only change of pain, 
 (A bitter change!) severer for severe. 
 The day too short for my di'Jtress; and night, 
 Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain. 
 Is sunshine to the colour of my fate. 
 
 Night, sable goddess 1 from her ebon thron;- 
 Tn rayles? majesty, now stretches forth 
 R
 
 10 THE COMPLA.INT, 
 
 Her leaden sceptre o'er a slurub'ring world. 
 Silence ho'»v dead ! and darkness how profound i 
 T^or eye, nor list'ning ear an object Gnds; 
 Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the gen'ral pulse 
 Of life stood still, and nature made a pause ; 
 An awful pause ! prophetic of her end. 
 And let her })rophecy be soon fulfiil'd : 
 Fate ! drop the curtain ; I can lofe no more. 
 
 Silence and daikness, solenm sisters ! twins 
 From ancient Pvight, who nurse the tender thou;:-. . 
 To reason, and on reason build resolve, 
 (That column of true majesty in man) 
 Assist me: I will thank you in the grave ; 
 Tha grave your kingdom : there this frame shall fall 
 A victim sacred to your dreary sbrine. 
 ."But what are ye ? 
 
 Thou, who didst put to flight 
 Primeval Silence, when the morning slars, 
 Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball ; 
 X> Thou, whose word from solid darkness struck 
 That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my soul ; 
 My soul, which ilies to thee, her trust, her treasure, 
 As misers to their gold^ while others rest. 
 
 Thro' this opaque of nature and of soul, 
 This double night, transmit one pitying ray, 
 To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind, 
 (A mind that fain would wander from its wo) 
 I..ead it thro' various scenes of life and death. 
 And from each sgi^^^^tbe noblest truths inspire 
 'JSoT less inspire ttiy conduct than my song ; 
 Teach my best reasow^^ieason ; my best vviil 
 
 nd re^r 
 
 Teach rectitude; and 15 my firm regolye
 
 ox LIFE, DEATH, AXD IIUMORTALITT. fi 
 
 "Wisdom to vreJ, and pay her long arrear: 
 IS'or 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 
 But froai its loss : to give it then a tongue 
 Is uise in man. As if an angel spoke, 
 I feel the solemn sound. If beaitl aright, 
 It is the knell of my departed hours. 
 "Where are they I With the years beyond the flood, 
 It is the signal that demands despatch ; 
 How much i.? to be done ? My hopes and fears 
 Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge 
 Ijook down — on what I A fathomless abyss ; 
 A dread eternity ! how surely mine ! 
 And can eternity belong to rae, 
 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! 
 "Who center'd in our make such strange extremes i- 
 From different natures, marvellousiy mix'd, 
 Connection exquisite of stistant worlds: 
 Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain ! 
 Midway from nothiiig to the Deity ! 
 A beai7j etheiea!, sully'd and absorpt I 
 Tbo' sully'd and dishonour'd still divine I 
 Dim miniature of greatness absolute ! 
 An heir rf c:!ory ! a frail child of dust! 
 Helples* iuimortal ! insect infinite I 
 A vvnrni I h god ! — T treuible at myself, 
 And ih 'nyself am lost. Aflfinine, a stranger, 
 Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
 
 12 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 .^nd wontl'ring at her own. How reason rcc'. 
 O what a miracle to man is man, 
 Triumphantly distre?s'd I what joy 1 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 conGne me there. 
 
 Tis past conjecture. All things rise in proof. 
 While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread, 
 What tho' my soul fantastic measures trod 
 O'er fairy fields, or mourn'd along the gloom 
 Of pathless woods, or down tliR craggy steep 
 Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled poo), 
 Or scal'd the cliff, or danc'd on hollow winds 
 With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain ? 
 Her ceaseless flight, tho' devious, speaks her naturt 
 Of subtler essence than the trodden clod, 
 Active aerial, tow'ring, unconfin'd, 
 Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall. 
 Ev'n gilent night proclaims my soul immortal; 
 Ev'n silent night proclaims eternal day. 
 For human weal heav'n husbands all events: 
 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 heav'nly pity fall 
 On rae more justly number'd with the dead. 
 This is the dcseit, this the solitude:
 
 ON LIFE, DEATH, AND 13IM011TALTTT, IS- 
 
 How populou?, how vital is the grave I 
 This is creation's melancholy vault, 
 The vale funeral, the sad cypress ti;loora I 
 The land of appariti.ms, empty siiades! 
 All, all on earth is shadow, ali beyond 
 Is substance : the reverse is folly's creed : 
 How solid all Vv'here change shall be no more I 
 
 This is the byd of being, the dim dawn, 
 The tu'ilight of our day, the vestibule. 
 Life's theatre as yet is shut, and Death, 
 Strong Death, alone can heave the massy lar, 
 This gross impediment of clay remove, 
 And make us embryos of existence free, 
 From rsal life, but little more remote 
 Is he, not yet a candidate for light. 
 The future embryo, slurab'ring i:i his sire, 
 Embryos we must be till we ijurst the shell. 
 Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life, 
 The life of Gods (O transport I; and of man. 
 
 Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts; 
 Inters celestial hopes without one sigh. 
 Prisoner of earth, and peat beneath the moon. 
 Here pinions all his wishes ; wiiig'd hy Heav'a 
 To fly at infinite, and reach it there, 
 Where seraphs gather immortality, 
 On life's fair tree, fast by the throne uf God. 
 What golden ji-ys ambrosial clust'ring glow 
 In his full beam, and ripen for the ju>t, 
 Where momentary ages are no mure ! 
 Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death ex- 
 pire ! 
 And is it in the flight of threescore years 
 To push eternity from human thought,
 
 14 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 And smother souls immortal in the dust f 
 A soul immortal, spending all her fires, 
 Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness. 
 Thrown intotumult, raptur'd or alarm'd, 
 At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, 
 Resembles ocean into temptest wrought, 
 To \vt\ft a feather, or to drown a fiy. 
 
 AVhere falls this censure ? It o'erwhelras myself. 
 How was my heart incrusted by the world! 
 O how self-fetter'd was ray grov'iing soul ! 
 Ho>v, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round 
 In silken thought, which reptile Fancy spun. 
 Till darkened reason lay quite clouded o'er 
 With soft conr.eit of endlets comfort here, 
 Nor yet put fortli 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 no more!) 
 Of joys perpetual in perpetual change! 
 Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave! 
 Eternal sun«hine in the storms of life! 
 How richly were my n ;ontide trances hung 
 "With georgeous tapestriws of pictured 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 frenzy's pompous furniture? 
 The cobwebb'd cottage with its ragged wall 
 Of mould'ring mud, is royalty to me! 
 The spiders most attenuated thread 
 Is «ord, is cable, to man's tender tie 
 No earthly bliss : it breaks at every breeze.
 
 ON LIl'E, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY. 15 
 
 O ye blest scenes of permanent delight ! 
 Full above measure I lasting beyond bound I 
 A perpetuity of bl'ss is bliss. 
 Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end, 
 That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy, 
 And quite unparadise the realms of light. 
 Safe are you lodg'd above these rolling spheres ; 
 The baleful influence of whose giddy dance 
 Shed sad vicissitude on all beneath. 
 Here teems with revolutioRS ev'ry houp, 
 And rarely for the better ; or the best 
 More mortal than the common births of Fate. 
 Each moment has its sickle, emulous 
 Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep 
 Strikes empires from the root : each moment plays 
 His little weapon in the narrower sphere 
 Of sweet domestic comfort, and cuts down 
 The iairef-t feloom of sublunary bliss. 
 
 BiiBs! sublunary bliss I — proud words, and vain! 
 Implicit treason to divine decree! 
 A bold invasion of the rights of Heaven I 
 I clasp'd the phantoms, and I found them air. 
 O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace I 
 What darts of agony had miss'd my heart! 
 
 Death! great proprietor of all ! His thine 
 To tread out empire, and to quench the star.'=. 
 The sun himself by thy permission shines. 
 And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from his sphere. 
 Amidst such mighty plunder, why exhr\nst 
 Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean ? 
 Why thy peculiar rancour wrc-ak'd on me ?
 
 18 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Insatiate Archer I could not one suffice? 
 Thy shaft tlew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain ^ 
 And thiice, ere thrice yon moon had flU'd her horn«. 
 Oh Cynthia ! why so pale? dost shou lament 
 Thy wretched nei}i;hbour ? grieve to «;ee thy wheel 
 Of ceaseless change outwhirl'd in human life ? 
 How wanes my borrow 'd Ijliss ! from Fortune's smile, 
 Precarious courtesy I not virtue's sure, 
 Self-given, solar, ray of sound delight. 
 
 In ev'ry vary'd posture, place, and hour. 
 How widow'd ev'ry thought of ev'ry joy 1 
 Thought, busy thought ! too busy for my peace I 
 'Thro the dark postern of time long elaps'd, 
 lied softly, by the stillness of the night, 
 Led, like a murderer (and such it proves !) 
 Strays (wretched rover !) o'er the pleasing past : 
 In quest of wretchedness perversely strays ; 
 And finds all desert now ; and meets the ghosts 
 Of my departed joys, a num'rous train ! 
 i rue the riches of my former fate ; 
 Sweet comfort's blasted clusters I lament ; 
 I tremble at the blessings once so dear, 
 And ev'ry pleasure pains me to the heart. 
 
 Yet why complain ? or why complain for one ? 
 Hangs out the sun his lustre but for me. 
 The single man ? are angels all beside ? 
 I mourn for millions ; 'tis the common lot ; 
 In this shape or in that has Fate entail'd 
 The mother's throes on all of woman born, 
 Not more the children than sure heirs of pain. 
 
 War, famine, pest, vokano, storm and fire, 
 Intestine broils, Oppression, with her heart
 
 ox LIFE, KEATH, AND IMMOKTALITr. 17 
 
 Wiapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind. 
 
 God's Image, disinherited of day, 
 
 Here, plung'd in mines, forgets a sun was made ? 
 
 There, beings, deathless as their haughty lord, 
 
 Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life ; 
 
 And plough the winter^s wave, and- reap despair. 
 
 Some for hard masters, broken under arms, 
 
 In battle lopp'd away, with half their limbs, 
 
 Beg bitter bread thro' realms their valour sav'u. 
 
 If so the tyrant, or his minion doom. 
 
 Want, and incurable disease (fell pair !)■ 
 
 On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize 
 
 At once, and make a refuge of the grave. 
 
 How groaning hospitals eject their dead I 
 
 AVhat numbers groHn for sad admission there I 
 
 "What numbers, once in Fortune's lap high fed, 
 
 Solicit the cold hand of charity I 
 
 To shock us more, solicit it in vain ! 
 
 Ye silken sons of Pleasure ! since in pains 
 
 You rue more modish visits, visit here, 
 
 And breathe from your debauch ; give, and reduce 
 
 Surfeit's dominion o'er you. But so great 
 
 Your impudence, you blush at what is right* 
 
 Happy ! did sorrow seize on such alone, 
 Not prudence can defend, or virtue save ; 
 Disease invades the chatest temperance, 
 And punishment the guiltless; and alarm. 
 Thro' thickest shades, pursues tne fond of peace. 
 Man's caution often into danger turns. 
 And, his guard failing, crushes him to death, 
 Nothappiness itself makes good her naiuej 
 Our very wishes give us notour wisli^ 
 B2
 
 18 THE COMrLAIXT. 
 
 How distant oft the thing we doat on most 
 
 From that for which we doat, felicity ! 
 
 The smoothest course of Nature has its pains, 
 
 And truest friends, thro' error, wound our rest. 
 
 AVithout misfortune what calamities! 
 
 And what hostilities without a foe I 
 
 Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth. 
 
 But endless is the list of human ills. 
 
 And sighs might sooner fail than cause to sigh. 
 
 A part how small of the terraqueous globe 
 Is tenanted by man ? the rest a waste ; 
 -Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands! 
 Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death. 
 Such is earth's melancholy map ! but far 
 More sad ! ihh earth is a true map of man ; 
 So bounded are its haughty lord's delights 
 To woe's wide empire, where deep troubles toss, 
 Xioud sorrows howl, envenom'd passions bite, 
 Jlav'nons calamities our vitals seize. 
 And threat'ning Fate wide opens to devour. 
 
 lYhat then am I, who sorrow for myself? 
 In age, in infancy, from other's aid 
 Is all our hope ; to teach us to be kind, 
 That Nature's first, last lesson to mankind ; 
 The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels ; 
 More gen'rous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts; 
 And conscious virtue mitigates the pang. 
 Nor virtue more than prudence bids me give 
 Swoln thought a second channel; who divide, 
 They weaken, too, the torrent of their grief. 
 Take, then, O world 1 thy much indebted tear ; 
 •How sad a sight is human happiness
 
 ox LIFE, DEATH, AND IMlIORTiVLITY . la 
 
 To those whose thought <;an pierce beyond an hour 1 
 
 thou ! whate'ei- thou art, vvhn?e heart exults I 
 Woukht thou I should congratulate thy fate ? 
 
 1 know thou woiildst ; thy pride demands it from me 
 Let thy pride pardon what thy nature needs, 
 The salutary censure of a friend. 
 
 Thou happy wretch I by blindness thou art blast ; 
 TJy dotage dandled to perpetual smiles, 
 I^^now, Siuiler! at thy peril art thou pleas'd, 
 Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain. 
 Misfortune like a creditor severe. 
 But rises inueraand for her delay ; 
 She makes a scourge of past prosperity. 
 To sting thee more and double thy diiires.". 
 
 Lorenzo, Fortune makes her court to tlir-c: 
 Thy fond heart dances while the Syren singy. 
 Dear is thy welfare ; think me not unkind : 
 I would not damp, but to secure thy joys, 
 Think not that fear is sacred to the storm; 
 Stand on thy guard against the smiles of Fate. 
 Is Heav'n tremendous in its frowns? most sure ; 
 And in its favours formidable too : 
 Its favom*s here are trials, not rewards ; 
 A call to duty, not discharge from care, 
 And should alarm us full as much as woes: 
 Awake us to their cause and consequence, 
 Ar.d make us tremble, wcig'd with our dejert ; 
 Aue natur's tumult, and chastise her joy.'.-, 
 Lest while we clasp, we kill them ; nay, invert 
 To worse than simple misery their charms. 
 Revolted joys, like foes in civil war, 
 Like bosoaj fiiend?;hins to resculment sour'il
 
 20 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 "With rage envenoin'd rise against our peace. 
 Beware what earth oalls happiness ! beware 
 All joys but joys that never can expire. 
 Who builils on less than an immortal base, 
 Fond as he seem?, condemns his joys to death. 
 
 Mincdy'd with thee, Philander I thy last sig,h 
 Dissolv'd the charm ; the disinciianted earth 
 T.ost all her lustre. Where her glitt'ring tow'rs ? 
 Iter golden mountains were ? all darken'd dowa 
 To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears ; 
 The great magician's dead I Thou poor pale piece 
 Of outcast earth, in darkness ! what a change 
 From ycpterday ! Thy darling hope so near, 
 (Long-laboured prize I) O how ambition flush'd 
 Thy glowing cheek ? ambition, truly great, 
 Of virtuous praise. Death's subtle seed within, 
 (Sly, treach'rous miner !) working in the dark, 
 Smil'd at thy well-concerted scheme, and bcckon'J 
 The worm to riot on that rose so red, 
 Unfaded ere it fell ; one moment's prey ! 
 
 Man's foresight is conditionally wise ; 
 Lorenzo I wisdom into folly turn« 
 Oft the first in-^tant its idea fair 
 To labouring thought is born. How dim our eye ! 
 'ihe present moment terminates our sight ; 
 Clouds,thick as those on Doomsday, drown the next; 
 "We penetrate, we prophesy in vain. 
 Time is dealt out by particles, and each 
 Ere mingled with the streaming sands of life, 
 Ey Fate's inviolable oath is swof n 
 Deep silence, '* Where eternity begins." 
 
 Bv Nature's law, what may be, mav be now ;
 
 ox LIFE, DEA.TH, AXD I31M0RTAI.I T V. 21 
 
 There's no prerogative in human hour?. 
 
 In human hearts what bolder thoughts can rise 
 
 Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn ? 
 
 "Where Is to-morrow ? In another world. 
 
 For numbers this is certain : the reverse 
 
 Is sure to none ; and yet on this Perhap?, 
 
 This Peradventure, infamous for lies, 
 
 As on a rock of adamant we build 
 
 Our mountain-hopes, spin out etern?! schcnies, 
 
 As we the fatal sisters could out-spin, 
 
 And, big with life's futurities, expire. 
 
 Notev'n Philander had bespoke bis shroud, 
 Nor had he cause ; a warning was deny'd ; 
 How many fall as sudden not as safe ; 
 As fudden, tho' for years admoni«;h'd home i 
 Of human ills the last extreme beware ; 
 Beware, Lorenzo I a slow sudden death, 
 How dreadful that deliberate surprise ; 
 Ee wise to-day 'tis m»'ness to defer : 
 Next day the fatal precedent wiil plead ; 
 Thus on till wisdom is push'd cut of lifv?. 
 Procrastination is the thief of time ; 
 Year after year it steals till all are fled, 
 And to the mercies of a moment, leaves 
 The vast coucerns of an pternal scene. 
 If not so frequent, would not this be strange ? 
 That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still. 
 
 Of inau's miracuiou? mistakes this bear? 
 The palm, " That all men are about to live,'* 
 For ever on the brink of being born. 
 All pay tiiemselves the compliment to think 
 They one day shall not drivel, and their pridf
 
 22- THE COMPIiAIXT. 
 
 On this reversion takes up ready praise ; 
 
 At least their own; thfir future selves applauds; 
 
 Hov,' excellent that life they ne'er will lead ! 
 
 Time ImI^M in their own hands is Folly's vails; 
 
 That lod^'d in Faie's, to wisdom they consign ; 
 
 The thing they can't but purpose they postpone; 
 
 >Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool ; 
 
 And scarce in human wisdom to do more. 
 
 All promise is poor dilatory man, 
 
 And that thro' every stage; AVhen young indeed^ 
 
 In full content we sometiiiies uobly rest, 
 
 Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish. 
 
 As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise* 
 
 At thirty, man suspects himself^ fool ; 
 
 Knows it at f.)rty, and reforms his plan.; 
 
 At fifty chide? his infamous delay 
 
 Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ; 
 
 In all the magnanimity of thought 
 
 Resolves and re-resolves ; then dies the same. 
 
 And why ? because he thinks hituself immortal. 
 All men think all men mortal but themselves ; 
 Themselves, when some alarming shock of Fate 
 Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread; 
 But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, 
 Soon close; where past the shaft no trace is found, 
 As from the wing no scar the sky retains, 
 The parted wave no furrow fro;n the keel, 
 So dies in human hearts the thoughts of death. 
 E'en with the tender tear, which Nature sheds 
 O'er those we lo\e, we drop it in their grave. 
 Can I forget Philander? that were strange ! 
 O my full heart ! — But should I give it vent,
 
 ox LIFE, 33EATH, AND IM3IOBTALITT. 23 
 
 The longest night, tho' longer far, would fail, 
 And the lark liste'n to my midnight song. 
 
 The sprightly lark's shrill matin wakes the morn; 
 Grief's sharpest thorn hard pressing on my breast, 
 I strive, with wakeful melody, to cheer 
 The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel I like thee, 
 And call the stars to listen ; ev'ry star 
 Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay. 
 Yet be not vain ; there are who thine excel, 
 And charm through distant ages. Wrapt in shade, 
 Prisoner of darkness I to the silent h<nu-3 
 How often I repeat their rage divine, 
 To lull my griefs, and steel ray heart from woe I 
 I roll their raptures, but not catch their fire. 
 Dark, tho' not blind, like thee. Masonide*! 
 Or, Milton, thee I Ah, could I reach your strain! 
 Or his whf) made Ma^onides our own. 
 IVlan, too he sung; immortal man I sing. 
 Oft bursts my song beyond the bounds of life; 
 "What now but immortality can {(lease ? 
 O had h^ prese'd his theme, pursuM the track 
 "Which opens out of darkness into day ! 
 O had he mounted on his wing of fire, 
 Soar'd where I sink, and sung immortal man! 
 How had it blest mankind, and rescu'd me '
 
 TOE 
 
 COMPLAINT. 
 NIGHT II. 
 
 vwvw 
 
 ON TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 TO THE EIGHT HOrCOURABLE THE EARL OE 
 WILMINGTON. 
 
 When the cock crew be wept, — sinotebythat eye 
 Which looks on me, on all ; that pow'r who bids 
 This midnight centinel, with clarion shrill, 
 (Emblem of that which shall awake the dead) 
 Rouse souls from sltsmber into thoughts of lleav'n, 
 Shall I too weep? where then is fortitude? 
 And fortitude abandon'd, where is man ? 
 I know the terms ois which he sees the light : 
 He that is born is listed ; life is war ; 
 Eter::ial war with woe : who bears it best 
 Deperveg it least. — On other themes I'll dwell. 
 X4 renzo ! let me turn my thouuhts on thee ; 
 And thine, on themee may profit ; profit there 
 Where most thy need. Themes, too, the genuine 
 
 growth 
 Of dear Philander's dust. He thus, tho* dead, 
 XI«y still befriend — What themes? Timt'.s wond* 
 
 rous price. 
 Death, friendship, and Philander's final scene ?
 
 ox TIME, DEATH, AND FRIENDSHIP, 25 
 
 go could I touch theee themes as might obtain 
 Thine ear, nor leave thy heart quite disengag'd, 
 The good deed would delight me ; half iin^^ress 
 On my dark cloud an Iris, and from grief 
 Call glory. — Dost thou mourn Philander'.* fate ; 
 I know thou say'st it: says thy life the tame? 
 He ii:ourns the dead, who lives as thy desire. 
 Where is that thirst, that avarice of time, 
 (O glorious avarice 1) thought of death inspires, 
 As rumour'd robberies endear our gold! 
 O Time I than gold more sacred, more a load 
 Than lead to fools, and fools reputed wise. 
 "What moment granted man without account? 
 "What years are sqander'd, wisdom's debt unpaid i 
 Our wealth in days all due to tliat discharge. 
 Haste, hasie, he lies in wait, he'.« at the door. 
 Insidious Deaih 1 should his strong hand arrest, 
 No composition sets the pris'ner free. 
 Eternity's inexorable chain 
 Fast binds, and vengeance claims the full arreer. 
 
 How late 1 shudder'd on the brink I how late 
 Life caird for her la^t refuge in despair I 
 That time is mine, O Mead! to thee I owe ; 
 Fain would I pay thee with eternity ; 
 But ill my genius answers my desire ; 
 My sickly song is mortal, past thy cure. 
 Accept the will ; — that dies not with my strain. 
 
 For what calls thy disease, Lorenzo? Not 
 For E?ciilapian, but for moral aid. 
 Thou think'st it foliy to be wise too soon. 
 Youth is not rich in time ! it may be, poor; 
 Part with it as with money, spariog ; pajr
 
 2G THE CCMPLAI.NT. 
 
 No moment, but in purchase of its worth; 
 
 And what its worth, ask tlcath-bcds they can telK . 
 
 Part with it as with life, reluctant ; big 
 
 With holy hope of nobler time to come: 
 
 Time higher aiiivtl, still nearer the great mark 
 
 Of men and angels: virtue more divine. 
 
 Is this our duty, wisdom, glory, gain ? 
 (ThcFC Reav'n benign in vital union binds) 
 And sport we like the natives of the bough, 
 When vernal suns inspire? Amusement reigns 
 Man's great demand : to trifle is to live: 
 And is it then a triOe, too, to die ? 
 
 Thou say'st I preach, Lorenzo ! 'Tis confest. 
 Wiiat, if, for once, I preach thee quite awake? 
 Who wants amuseinent in the flarae of battlei* 
 Is it not treason to the soul immortal, 
 Her foes in arms, eternity the prize ? 
 Will toys amuse when med'cines cannot cure ? 
 When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes 
 Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight, 
 As lands, and cifeies with their glitt'ring spires, 
 To the poor shatter'd bark, by sudden storm 
 Thrown ofif to sea, and soon to perish there, 
 Will toys amuse? No ; thrones will then be toys, 
 And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale. 
 
 Redeem we time ? — Its loss we dearly buy. 
 What pleads Lorenzo for his high-priz'd sports ? 
 He pleads time's num'rous blanks ; he loudly pleads 
 The straw-like trifles on life's common stream. 
 From whom those blanks and trhles but from thee ^ 
 |i»'o blank, no triilc, Nature made, or meant. 
 Virtue, or purpos'd virtue, still be thine ;
 
 ON TIME, B2ATH, AND FKlENDSHIP. 27 
 
 This cancels thy complaint at once: this leave* 
 In act no trifle, and no blank in time. 
 This greatens, fills, immortalizes all ; 
 This- the blest art of turning all to gold : 
 This the good heart's prerogative to raise 
 A royal tribute from the poorest hours ; 
 Immense revenue I ev'ry moment pays. 
 If nothing more than purpose in thy pow^", 
 Thy purpose firm \s equal to the deed : 
 Wh) does the best his circumstance allows, 
 Poeswell, acts nobly; angels could no more. 
 Our outuard act, indeed, admits restraint : 
 'Tis not in things o'er thought to domineer ; 
 Guard \fe]l thy thought: our thoughts are heard ic 
 heav'n. 
 
 On all important time, thro' ev'ry age, 
 Tho'nmch, and warm, the wise haveurg-d ; the maa 
 I3 yet unborn who duly weigh's an hour, 
 '* I've lost a day" — the prince who nobly cry'd, 
 Had been an emperor without his crown ; 
 Of Rome ? Say, rather lord of human race ! 
 He spoke as if deputed by mankind. 
 So should all speak: so reason speaks in all ; 
 From the soft whispers of that God in manj 
 Hfhy fly to folly, why to freazy fly, 
 For rescue from the blessings we possess ? 
 Time, the supreme I — Time is eternity ; 
 Pregnant with all eternity can give ; 
 Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile, 
 Who murders Time, he crushes in the birth 
 A pow'r etherc-al, only not ador'd. 
 
 Ah I how unjust to Natare aad himself
 
 23 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Is thouglitle^is, thankless, inconsistent man ! 
 
 Like children babbling nonsense in their sports, 
 
 "We censure Nature for a span too short; 
 
 That span too short we tax as tedious teo ; 
 
 Torture invention, ail expedients tire, 
 
 To lash the linK'ring moments into speed, 
 
 -And whirl us (happy riildance I) from ourselves. 
 
 Art, hrainleps arti our furious charioteer, 
 
 (For Nature's voice unstiiied would ret'rtll) 
 
 Drives headlong towards the precipice of death ; 
 
 Death most our dread ; death thus more dreadful. 
 
 made ; 
 O what a riddle of absurdity ! 
 Leisure is pain ; takes off our chariot-wheels: 
 IIow heavily we drag the load of life ! 
 Elest leisure is our curse ; like that of Cain, 
 It makes us wander, wander earth around. 
 To fly that tyrant Thought. As Atlas groan'd 
 The world benealh, we groan benervth an hour, 
 We cry for mercy to the next amusement ;. 
 The next amusenient mortgages our fields; 
 Slight inconvenience ! prisons hardly frown 
 From hateful time if prisons set us tree. 
 Yet Avhen death kindly tenders us relief, 
 We call him cruel ; years to moments shrink; ^ 
 Ages to years. The telescope is turn'd. 
 To man's false optics (from his foily false) 
 Time in ad\'anee, behind him bides his wings, 
 And seems to creep decrepit with his age ; 
 Behold him when past by ; what then is seen 
 But hif broad pinions swifter than the winds? 
 And all mankind, in contradiction strong, 
 Rueful, aghast I cry out on hh career.
 
 ON TIME, DEATn, AND FRIENDSHIP. 29 
 
 Leave to thy foes these errors and these ills ; 
 To nature just, their cause and cure explore. 
 Net short Heaven's bounty ; boundless our expense ; 
 No niggard Nature ; men are prodigals. 
 "We waste, not use our time ; we breathe, not live ; 
 Time wasted, is existence, Db'dislife; 
 And bare existence, man, to live ordain'd, 
 Wrings and oppresses with enormous weight. 
 And uhy ? since time wa^ giv'n for u?e, not waste, 
 Enjoin'd to Sy ; with tempest, tide, end stars, 
 To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man ; 
 Time's use was doom'd a pleasure, waste a pain ; 
 That man might feel his error if unseen, 
 And feeling, fly to labour for bis cure ; 
 Not blund'ring spilt on Idleness for ease. 
 X.ife's cares are comforts ; such by Heav'n design'd ; 
 He that has none must make them, or be wretched. 
 Cares are employments ; and without employ 
 The soul is on a rack ; the rack of rest, 
 To souls most adverse ; action all their joy. 
 
 Here, then, the riddle, mark'd above, unfolds ', 
 Then time turns torment, when man turns a fool, 
 "We rave, we wrestle with great Nature's plan ; 
 TTe thwart the Deity, and 'tis decreed, 
 Who thwart his will shall contradict their own, 
 Hence our unnat-ral quarrel with ourselves; 
 Our thoughts at enmity ; our bosom-broil ; 
 We push Time from us, and we wish him back ; 
 Lavish of lustrums, and yet fond of life ; 
 Life we think long and short ; death seek and shun ; 
 Body and ?o:il, like peevish man and wife, 
 United jar, and yet are loth to part.
 
 30 IflE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Oh the dark days of vanity ! while here 
 How tasteless ! and how terrible when gone ! 
 Gone I they ne'er go ; when past thpy haunt us still ; 
 The spirit walks of ev'ry day deceas'd, 
 And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns. 
 Nor death nor life delight us. If time past 
 And time possest both pain us what can please ? 
 That which the Deily to please ordain'd, 
 Time us'd. The man who consecrates his hours 
 By vig'rous effort and an honest aim, 
 At once he draws the sting of life and death ; 
 He walks with nature, and her paths are peace, 
 
 Our errors cause and care are seen ! see next 
 Time's nature, origin, importance, speed ; 
 And thy great gain from urging his career. — 
 Ail-gensual man, because untouch'd, unseen. 
 He looks on time as nothing. Nothing else 
 Is truly man's ; 'tis fortune's — Time's a god. 
 Hast thou ne'er heard of time's omnipotence? 
 For, or against, what wonders can he do ! 
 And will ; to stantl blank neuter he disdains. 
 Not on those terms was time (Heav'n's stranger) sent 
 On his important embassy to ujan. 
 Lorenzo ! no ; on the long j'estin'd hour, 
 From everlasting ages growing ripe, 
 That ujemorable hour of wondrous birth, 
 Wiien the Dread Sire, on emanation bent, 
 And bi«- with Nature* rising in his might, 
 Cali'd forth Creation (for then time was born)- 
 By Godhead streaming thro' a thousand worlds; 
 Not on those terms, from the great days of heav'/»,
 
 OS TIME, DE\Tn, AND FBU:yDSHlP. 31 
 
 From old Eternity's mysterious orb 
 
 Was time cut off", and cast beneath the frkies ; 
 
 The skies, which watch hira in his new aboue, 
 
 Measuring his motions by revolving spheres ; 
 
 That horologe machinery divine 
 
 Hours, days, and months, and years, his children play, 
 
 Like numerous wings, around hira, as he flies; 
 
 Or rather, as unequal plumes, they shape 
 
 His ample pinions, swift as darted flame, 
 
 To gain his gaol, to reach his ancient rest, 
 
 And join anew Eternity his sire ; 
 
 In bis immutability to nest, 
 
 "When worlds, that count his circles now, unhing'ui 
 
 (Fate the loud signal sounding) headlong rush 
 
 To timeless night and chaos, whence they rose. 
 
 "Why spur the speedy ? why with levities 
 Kew-wing thy short, short day's too rapid flight ? 
 Know'st thou, or what thou dost, or what is done ? 
 J-Ian flies from time, and time from man, too sooa 
 In sad divorce this double flight must end.; 
 And then where are we ? where, Lorenzo, then 
 Thy sports, thy pomps ? I grant thee, in a state 
 IVot unambitious ; in the ruffled shroud, 
 Thy Parian's tomb's triumphant arch beneath. 
 Has death his fopperies ? Then well may life 
 Put on her plume and in her rainbow shine. 
 
 Ye well array'd ye lilies of o^ir land i 
 Ye lilies male I who neither toil nor spin, 
 (As sister lilies might) if not so wise 
 As Solomon, more sumptuous to the sight ! 
 Ye Delicate ! who nothing can support, 
 Yciirselves most insupportable I for whom,
 
 32 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 The winter rose must blow, the sun put on 
 
 A brighter b*»am in Leo; silky-poft 
 
 Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid ; 
 
 Antl other worlds send odours, sauce, and song, 
 
 And robes, and notions, fram'd in foreign loouiS i 
 
 O ye Loren^os of our age I who deem 
 
 One moment unamasM a misery 
 
 Not made for feeble man ; who call aloud 
 
 For ev'ry bauble drivell'd o'er by sense, 
 
 For rattles and conceits of ev*ry cast ; 
 
 For change of follie? and relays of joy, 
 
 To drag your patient thro' the tedious length 
 
 Of a short winter's day — say, Sages, say! 
 
 "Wit's Oracles ; say Dreamers cf gay dreams ; 
 
 How win you weather an eternal night, 
 
 "Where such expedients fail ? 
 
 O treach'mus Conscience 1 while she seems to sleep 
 
 On ro«e and myrtle, luli'd with Syren song; 
 
 "While she seems nodding o'er her charge, to drop 
 
 On headlong appetite the slacken'd rein. 
 
 And give us up to license, un recall 'd, 
 
 Uncnark'd ; — see, from behind her secret stand, 
 
 The ?Iy informer minutes ev'ry fault, 
 
 And her dread diaiy with honor fills. 
 
 Tsot the gross act alone employs her pen ; 
 
 She leconnoitres Fancy's airy band, j 
 
 A watchful foe ! the formidable spy, ) 
 
 List'ning o'erhears the whispers of our camp, i 
 
 Our dawning pnrposes cf heart explores, i 
 
 And steals our embryos of iniijuity, 
 
 As all rapacious usurers conceal ) 
 
 Their Doomsday-book from all-consuming beii s. (
 
 ON TIME, DEATH, AXD FRirXDSHir. S3 
 
 Th'j?:, with indulgence most severe, she treats 
 Is spemUhrifts of inestimable time ; 
 Unnoted, notes each moment raisapply'd; 
 In leaves more durable than leaves of brass ; 
 AViites our whole history, which Death shall read. 
 In ev'ry jmle delinquent's private ear, 
 And Judgment publish ; publish to more worlds 
 Than this; and endless age in groans resound. 
 Lorenzo, such that sleeper in thy breast ! 
 Such is her slumber, and her vengeance such 
 For Slighted counsel ; such thy future peace 1 
 And lhink*st thou still thou canst be wise too soon ? 
 
 But why on time so lavish is my song? 
 On this great theme kind ?x'atu re keeps a school, 
 'Jo teach her sons herself. Each night we die ; 
 Kacli morn are born anew ; each day a life ! 
 And shall we kill each day? If triOing kills, 
 .Such vice must butcher. O what heaps of slaia 
 Cry out for vengeance on us ! Time destroyed • 
 Iri suicide, where more than blood is spilt. 
 Time P.ies, death urges, knells call, Heav'n invitee, 
 Hell threatens ; all exerts ; in effort all ; 
 More tlian creation labours ! labours more. 
 And is therein creation, what, amidst 
 Tiiis ttmiult universal, wing'd dispatch, 
 And ardent energy, supinely yawns ? — 
 Man sleeps, and man alone ; aud man whose fate, 
 Fate irreversible, entire, extreme. 
 Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulf 
 A moment trembles ; drops I and man, for whom 
 All else is in alarm ; man, the sole cause 
 Of ihis surrounding storm ! and yet he. sleeps. 
 C
 
 34 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 -As the storm rockM to rest. — Throw years away t 
 Throw empires, and be blameless. Moments seize, 
 Heav'ns on their wing ; a moment we may wish, 
 When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand 
 
 still, 
 Bid him drive back his car, and re-import 
 Tiie period past, re-give the giv'n hour. 
 Torenzo, more than miracles we want ; 
 i-orcnzo — O for ycs;terdaystu come I 
 
 Such is the language of the man awake; 
 His ardour such for what oppresses thee, 
 And is his ardour vain,- Lorenzo ? No ; 
 That more than miracle the gods indulge. 
 To-day is yesterday returu'd, return'd 
 Full power'd to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn, 
 And reinstate us on the rock of peace. 
 ^Let it not share its predeces^ors fate, 
 Nor like its elder sisters, die a fool. 
 Shall it evaporate in fume, fly oft- 
 Fuliginous, and stain us deeper still ? 
 
 shall we be poorer for the plenty puur'd ? 
 
 More wretched for the cle.nenciesof Heav'n ? 
 Where shall I find him ? angels, tell me where. 
 
 You know him : lie is near you ; point him out. 
 
 Shall I see glories beaming from his brow, 
 
 Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers? 
 
 Your golden wings, now hov'ring o'er him, shed 
 
 Protection ; now are waving in applause 
 fo that b!es.t son of foresight ; lord of fate I 
 
 That awful independent on to-morrow ! 
 
 Whose work is done ; who triumphs in the past ; 
 
 Whose yesterdays look backward with a smile ;
 
 OS TIME, DZA.TH, A -VD SRIXNDSHIP. 35 
 
 Nor, like the Parthian wound him as they fly ; 
 
 That coimnon b«t approbrious lot I Past hours, 
 
 If not by guilt yet -vvound us by their fiight, 
 
 If folly bounds our prospect by the grave, 
 
 All feeling of futurity benum'd j 
 
 All god-like passion for eternals quench'd ; 
 
 All relish of realities expir'd ; 
 
 Reuouuc'd all correspondence with the skies ; 
 
 Our freedom chain'd ; nuite wingless our desire^ 
 
 In sense dark prison'd all that ought to soar j 
 
 Prone to the centre ; crawling in the dust J 
 
 Pismounted ev'ry great and glorious aina; 
 
 EmbiUted ev'ry faculty divine ; 
 
 Heart-buryM ia the rubbish of the world, 
 
 The world, that gulph of souls, immortal souls, 
 
 Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire 
 
 To reach the distant skie<!, and triumph there 
 
 On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters 
 
 chang'd. 
 Tbo' we from earth, etherial they that fell ; 
 Such veneration due, Oman, toman. 
 
 Who venerate themselves the world despise. 
 For what, gay friend, is this escutcheon'd world;^ 
 "Which hangs out death in one eternal night I 
 A night, that glooms us in the noon-tide ray,. 
 And wraps our thought, at banquet?, in the ahroufl. 
 Life's little stage is a small eminence, 
 Inch-hi2;h the grave above ; that home of man, 
 Where dwells the multitude ; we gaze aroutsd ; 
 We read their monuments ; we sigh ; and while 
 We sigh, we sink ; and are what we depior'd ; 
 L5mentintr, or lamented, all our lot I
 
 36 THECO:.irLAINT. 
 
 Is death at distance ? No : lie has been on thee ; 
 And giv'n sure earnest of his final blow. 
 Those hours that lately smil'd, where are they now ? 
 Paliid to thought, and ghastly I dmwn'd all drownVl 
 In tliat great deep, which nothing disenaboguesl 
 And, dying, they bequeathed the small renown. 
 The rest ar« on the wing : how lleet their flight I 
 Already has the fatal train took fire; 
 A moment, and the world's blown up to thee : 
 The sun is darkness, and the stars arc dust. 
 
 'Tis greatly wise to talk wi«,h our past hours; 
 And ask tliem what report they bore to heav'n ; 
 And how they might have borne more welcome 
 
 news. 
 Their answers form what men experience call ; 
 If Wisdom's friend her best ; if not, worst foe. 
 O reconcile them ! kind experience crief. 
 '* There's nothing here, but what as nothing weighs; 
 *' The more our joy, the more we know it vain ; 
 " And by success are tutor'd to despair.'^ 
 Nor is it only thus, but must be so. 
 Who knows not this, thv)' grey, is still a child. 
 Loose then from earth the grasp of fond desire, 
 Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore. 
 
 Art thou so moor'd thou canst not disengage, 
 Nor give thy thoughts a ply to future scenes? 
 Since by life's passing bi'cath blown up from earth , 
 Light as the summer's dust we take in air 
 A moment's giddy flight, and fall again ; 
 Join the dull nia=;s, increase the trodden soil, 
 And sleep till earth herself shall be no more ; 
 Since then (as emmets, their small world o'erthrown)
 
 ox TIMK, DEATH, AND FRiENDSniP. 37 
 
 "We, soreamaz'd, from out earth's ruins crawl, 
 And rise to fate extreme of foul or fair," 
 As man's own choice (controller of the skies) 
 As man's despotic will perhaps one hour, 
 (O how omnipotent is time I) decrees ; 
 Should not each warning give a strong alarm ? 
 Warning, far less than that of bosom torn 
 Erom bosom, bleeding o'er the sacred dead ! 
 Should not each dial strike us as we pass, 
 Portentous, as the written wall which struck, 
 O'er midnight bowls, the proud Assyrian pale, 
 Erev. hile high-ilushM with insolence and wind ? 
 Like that the dial speaks, and points to thee, 
 Lorenzo ! loath to break thy banquet up ; 
 " O man, thy kingdom is departing from thee ; 
 *' And while it lasts, is emptier than my shade.*' 
 Its silent languge such ; nor need'st thou call 
 Thy magi to decypher what it means. 
 Know, like the Median, Fate is in thy walls; 
 Dost ask how? whence? Belshazzar-like, amaz'd I 
 Man's make encloses the sure seeds of death ; 
 Life feeds the murderer ; ingrate I he thrives 
 On her own meal, and then his nurse devours. 
 
 But here, Lorenzo, the delusion lies; 
 That solar shadow, as it measures life, 
 It life resembles too; Life speeds away 
 From point to point, though seeming to stand still 
 The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth ; 
 Too subtle is the movement to be seen ; 
 Yet soon man's hour is up, and we are gone. 
 "Warnings point out our danger, gnomons, time ," 
 As these are useless when the sun is set;
 
 33 T^E COMPLAINT. 
 
 So those, but when more glorious reason shines. 
 Reason sliouli' jiulge in all ; in reason's eye, 
 That sedeutary shadow travels hard; 
 But such our gravitation to the wrong, 
 So prone our ht-artp to whisper what we wisfi, 
 'Tis later with the wise than he's aware ; 
 A Wilmington goes slower than the sun; 
 And all mankind mistake their tirae of day ; 
 E'en age itself. Frebh hopes are hourly sown 
 In furrow'd brows So gentle's life's descent, 
 Wp shut our eyes, and think it is a plain. 
 We take fair days in winter for the spring, 
 And turn our blessings into bane. Since ofl 
 Man must compute that age he cannot feel, 
 He scarce believes he's older for his years: 
 Thus at life's latest eve, we keep in store 
 One disappointment sure, to crown the rest; 
 The disappointment of a promis'd hour. 
 On this or similar. Philander, thou, 
 Whose mind was moral as the preacher's tongue; 
 And strong, to wield all science, worth the name- 
 Euw often we talk'd down the summer's sun, 
 And cool'd our passions by the breezy stream I 
 Hwo oftf'n thawnl and shorten'd winter's eve, 
 By conflict kind, that struck out laten truth, 
 Best found, so sought ; to the recluse more coy ! 
 Thoughts disentangle passing o'er the lip ; 
 Clean runs tho thread ; if not, 'tis thrown away, 
 Or kept to tie up nonsense for a song j 
 Song, fashionably fruitless; such as stains 
 The fancy, and unhallovv'd passion fires, 
 Chiming her saints to Cv<herea'i>- fano.
 
 ox TIME, DEATH, AND FRIE>'DSniP. 39 
 
 Know'st thou. Lorenzo, wbat a friend contains : 
 As bees mix'il nectar drawn from fragrant flow'rs 
 So men from friendship, wisdom and delight; 
 Twins ty'd by Nature ; if they part they die. 
 Hast thou no friend to set thy mind abroach? 
 Good sense will stagnate. Thoughts shut up, want 
 
 air, 
 And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun. 
 Had thought been all, sweet speech had been deny'd ; 
 Speech, thought's canal ! speech, thought's criterion 
 
 too! 
 Thought in the raind may come forth gold or dross ; 
 When coin'd in word, we know its real worth: 
 If sterling, store it for thy future use ; 
 Twil! buy tlipe benefit ; perhaps renown. 
 Thought, too, delivered, is the more possessed; 
 Teaching we learn, and giving we retain 
 The births of intellect; wben dumb forgot. 
 Speech ventilates our intellectual fire; 
 Speech burnishes our mental magazine ; 
 Brightens for ornament, and whets for use. 
 What numbers, sheath'd in erudition, lie 
 Plung'd to the hilts in venerable tomes, 
 And rusted in ; who might have borne an edge, 
 And play'd a sprightly beam, if born to speech I 
 Ifbcirn blest heirs of half their mother's tongue! 
 'Tis thought's exchange, whicii, like th' alternat 
 
 push 
 Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum, 
 And defecates the student's standing pool, 
 In contemplation is his proud resource? 
 'Xis poor, as proud, by converse nn'^ustain'd.
 
 40 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Rude thought runs wild in contemplation's field; 
 Converse, the nieanage, breaks it to the Lit 
 Of due restraint ; and ennalation's spur 
 Gives graceful energy, by rivals aw'd. 
 'Tis converse (lualifies for solitude, 
 As exercise for salutary rest: 
 By tliat untutor'd, contemplation raves, 
 And nature's fool by Wisdom's is undone. 
 
 "Wisdom, tho' richer than Peruvian mines, 
 And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive, 
 "What is she but the means of happiness? 
 That unobtain'd, than folly more a fool ; 
 A melancholy fool, without her bells. 
 .Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives 
 The precious end, which makes our wisdom wise. 
 ISFature, in zeal for human amity, 
 Denies or damps an undivided joy. 
 Joy is an import; joy is an exchange; 
 Joy flies monopolists ; it calls for two : 
 Rich fruit! Keav'n-planted ! never plack'd by one. 
 jXeedful auxiliaries are our fi-icnds, to give 
 To social man true relish of himself. 
 Full on ourselves descending in a line, 
 Pleasure'ij bright beam is feeble in delight : 
 Uelight intense is taken by rebound ; 
 ileverberated pleasures fire the breast. 
 
 Celestial happiness ! whene'er she stoops 
 To visit earth, one shrine the goddess Hnds, 
 And one alone, to make her sweet aihends 
 For absent heav'n — the bosom of a friend ; 
 "Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft, 
 Each other's pillow to repose divine.
 
 ON TIME, DEA.TH, AND FRIENDSHIP. 4\ 
 
 Beware the counterfeit ; in passion's flame 
 
 Hearts melt, but melt like ice, soon harder froze. 
 
 True love strikes root in reason, passion's foe ; 
 
 Virtue alone entenders us for life : 
 
 I wrong her much — entenders us forever. 
 
 Of friendship's fairest fruits, the fruit most fair 
 
 Is virtue kiudlinsr at a rival nre. 
 
 And cmuiously rapid in her race. 
 
 O the soft enmity ! endearing strife ! 
 
 This carries Friendship to her noon-tide point, 
 
 And gives the rivet of eternity 
 
 From Friendship, v.hich outlives my former 
 themes, 
 
 Glorious survivor of Old Time and Death ! 
 
 From Friendship thus, that fiow'r of heav'nly seed, 
 
 The wise extract earth's raostHyblean bliss, 
 
 Superior wisdon^ crown'd with smiling joy. 
 
 But for whom blossoms this Elysian flower? 
 Abroad they find who cherish it at home, 
 
 LorenZo, pardon what ray love extorts. 
 
 An honest love, and not afraid to frown. 
 Tho' choice of follies fasten on the great, 
 None clings more obstinate than fancy fondj 
 That sacred friend.ship is their easy prey ; 
 Caught by the wafture of a golden lure, 
 Or fascination of a high-born smile. 
 Their sniils, the great and the coquet throw out 
 For others hearts, tenacious of their own i 
 And we no less of ours when such the bait. 
 Ye Fortune's colFerers ! ye pow'rs of Wealth I 
 You do your rent-rolls most felonious wrong, 
 By taking our attachment to yourselve?, 
 C2
 
 42 T&ECOMrLAI?fT. 
 
 Can gold gain frienJshp? Impudence of hope ! 
 As well mere man an angel might beget, 
 t/ove, and love only, is the loan for love. 
 Lorenzo, pride repress, nor hope to find 
 A friend, but what has found a friend in thee. 
 All like the purchase, few the price will pay ; 
 And this makes friends such miracles below. 
 
 What if (since daring on so nice a theme) 
 I shew thee friendship delicate as dear, 
 Of tender violations apt to die ? 
 Keserve will wound it, and distrust destroy 5 
 Deliberate on all things with thy friend : 
 Eut since friends grow not thick on ev'ry bough, 
 Nor ev'ry friend unrotten at the corej 
 first on thy friend delib'rate with thyself; 
 Pause, ponder, sift, not eager in trie choice, 
 Nor jealous of the chosen : fixing fix : 
 Judge before friendship, then confide till death. 
 Well for thy friend, but nobler far for thee. 
 How gallant danger for earth's highest prize ! 
 A friend is worth all hazards we can run. 
 *' Poor is the friendless master of a world : 
 '* A world in purchase for a friend is gain.'* 
 
 So sung he (angels hear that angel sing I 
 Angels from friendship gather half thoirjoy !) 
 So sung Philander, as his friend went round 
 la the rich ichor, in the gen'rous blood 
 Of Bacchus, purple god of joyous wit. 
 A brow solute, and ever-laughing eye. 
 He drank long health and virtue to his friend. 
 His friend who warm'd him more, who more inspir'J. 
 Friendship's the wine of life ; but friendship new
 
 ox TIME, DEA.Tn, AND FRIENDSniP. 43 
 
 (Xol such was his) is neither strong nor pure. 
 
 O ! for the bright complexion cordial warmth, 
 
 And elevating spirit of a friend, 
 
 For twenty summers ripening by my side ; 
 
 All feculence of falsehood long thrown down ; 
 
 All social virtues rising in his soul ; 
 
 As chrystal clear, and smiling as they rise ! 
 
 Here nectar fiows ! it sparkles in our sight; 
 
 Rich to the taste, and genuine from the heart. 
 
 High flavour'd bliss for gods I on earth how rare 1 
 
 On earth how lost ! — Philander is no more. 
 
 Think'st thou the theme intoxicates my song ? 
 Am I too warm ? — Too warm I cannot be ? 
 I lov'd hitn much, but now I love him more. 
 Like bird?, whose beauties languish half conceai'd, 
 Till mounted on the wing their glossy ptumc-s 
 Expanded shine with azure, green and gold ; 
 How blessings brighten as they take their flight, 
 His fjight Philander took : his upward flight, 
 ir ever soul ascended. Had he dropt, 
 (That ep.gle genious 1) O had he let fall 
 One feather as he Sew, I then had wrote 
 "VThat friends might datter, prudent foes forbear, 
 Klvals scarce damn, and Zoilus reprieve. 
 Yet what I can I mast : it were profane 
 To quench a glory lighted at the skies, 
 And cast in shadows his illustrious close. 
 J-'trange ; the theme most affecting, most ^ublime, 
 Momentous mosi to man, should sleep unsung I 
 And yet it sleeps, by genius unawak'd, 
 Painim or Christian, to the blush of Wit. 
 Man's highest triumph, mar/s profoundesl fall,
 
 44 "J HE COMPLAllNf. 
 
 
 The death-bed of the just I is yet undrawn 
 
 By mortal hand ! it merits a divine: "l 
 
 Angels should paint it, angels ever there; 
 
 There, on a post of honour and of joy. 
 
 Dare I presume, then ? but Philander bids, 
 
 And glory tempts, and inclination calls, 
 
 Yet am I struck, as struck the soul beneath 
 
 A eiial groves impenetrable gloom, 
 
 Or in some mighty ruin's solemn shade, 
 
 Or gazing, by pale lamps, on high-born dust 
 
 In vaults, thin courts of poor unflatter'd kings; 
 
 Or at the mi;lnight altar's hallow'd fiame. 
 Is it religion to proceed : 1 pause — 
 And enter aw'd, the temple of my theme. 
 It is his death-bed ? No : it is his shrine : 
 Behold hira there just rising to a god. 
 
 The chamber where the good man meets his fate 
 is privileg'd "eyond the common walk 
 Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heftv'n. 
 Fly ye prophane ! if not, draw near w'ith awe, 
 Receive the bles.-iiig, and adore the chance 
 TJiat threw in this Bethesda your disease, 
 If unrestor'd by this, despair your cure ; 
 For here resistless demonstration dwells ; 
 A death-bed's a detector of the heart. 
 Here tir'd Dissimulation drops her mask 
 Thro' life's grimace, that mistress of the scene i 
 Here real and apparent are the same. 
 You see the man, you see his hold on heav'n. 
 If sound his virtue ; as Philander's sound. 
 Heav'n waits not the last moment ; owns her friends 
 On this si de death, and points them out to men :
 
 ON TIML, DEATH, AND FRIENDsniP, 45 
 
 A lecture silent, but of sov' reign pow'r ! 
 To Vice confusion, auil to Virtue peace. 
 
 Whatever farce the boastful hero plays, 
 Virtue alone ha? majesly in Death, 
 And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns, 
 Philamlerl he severely fruwn'tl on thee, 
 " No warning giv'n ! uncerean-nious fate ! 
 " A sudden rush from life'f meridian joy ! 
 I^A wrench from ali we love I from all we are I 
 r*' A restless bed of pain ! a plunge opaque 
 *' Beyond conjecture I feeble Nature's dread I 
 '^ Strong Rea?on'> shudder at the dark unknown I 
 *' A sun extingui>h'd! a just opening grave! 
 *' And, oh ! the last lastl u hat ? (can words express, 
 " Thought reach it ?) the last — silence of a ft ieud T' 
 "Where are th '?e horrors, that amazetnenx '.vhere, 
 This hideous group of ills (which «-ingly shock) 
 Demand from uian ? — I thought him man till now, 
 
 Th'o' Nature's wreck, thro' vanquish'd agonie?, 
 (Like the stars struggling thro' this midnight gloom,) 
 "What gleams of joy ? what more tiian human pe?.cey 
 Where the frail mortal ? the poor abject worm ? 
 No, not in death the mortal to be found. 
 His conduct is a legacy for all, 
 Richer than Mammon's for his single heir. 
 His comforters he comforts • great in ruin, 
 "With unreluctant grandeur gives, not yields, 
 His soul sublime, and closes with his fate. 
 
 How our hearts burnt within us at the scene ! 
 Whence, this brave bound o'er limits fixt te man ' 
 His God sustains him in his final hour ? 
 His final hour brings glory to hi? God ',
 
 46 TUE C03^PLAI^•T, ON TIME, DEATH, ScO. 
 
 Man's glory Heav'n vouchsafes to call her own. 
 We gaze, we weep ! mixt tears of grief and joy I 
 Arnazenient strikes ! ilevotion bursts to flame I 
 Ch^i^tians adore ! and infidels believe. 
 As some tall t.»w'r, or lofty tnoup.tain's brow, 
 Petalns the sun illustrious, from its height, 
 While rising vajiours rtnd deseending sliades, 
 With damps and darkness drown t!ie spacious vale, 
 Undainpt by doubt, undarken'd by despair, 
 Philander thus auguftly rears his head, 
 At that black hour which general horror sheds 
 On the low level of th' inglorious throng : 
 Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and huiilble joy, 
 Divinely beam on !iis exalted soul ; 
 Destruction gild and crown him for the skies 
 With inc^TTQmiinicable lustre bright.
 
 THfi 
 
 COMPLAINT. 
 
 www 
 
 NTGTlTin. 
 
 vwvw 
 
 NARCISSA. 
 
 Ignoamda quidtm. scirent si ignoiure mams. 
 
 Vine-. 
 
 INSCRIBED TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF P. 
 
 From dreams, where tho't in Fancy's maze ruus 
 mad, 
 To reason, that heav'n-ligbted lamp in man, 
 Cnce more I wake ; and at the destin'd hour, 
 Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn, 
 I keep ray assignation with ray woe. 
 
 O ! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought, 
 Lost to the noble sallies of the soul 1 
 "Who think it solitude to be alone. 
 Communion sweet ! communion large and high I 
 Our reason, guardian angel, and our God ! 
 Then nearest these, when others most remote; 
 And all ere long, shall be remote bnt these. 
 IIow dreadful, then, to meet them all alone, 
 A stranger ! unacknosvledg'd ! unapproved I 
 Now woo them, wed them, bind them to thy breast; 
 To win thy wish creation has no more. 
 
 Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend. 
 
 But friends, how mortal 1 dang'roiis the desire.
 
 48 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Take Phoebus to yourselves, ye basking banis ! 
 Inebriate at fair Portntse's fountain-bead ; 
 Anil reeling thro' the wilderness or joy, 
 Where Sense runs savage, broke from reason's chain, 
 -And sings faise peaoe, till stnoiljerM by the pall, 
 My fortune is unlike, unlike my song, 
 Unlike the deity my song invokes. 
 I to Day's soft-ey'd sister pay my court, 
 (Endymion's rival) and her aid implore j 
 Now first implor'd in succour to the Muse. 
 Thou, who didst lately borrow Cynthia's* form 
 And modestly forego thine own ! O ihon, 
 Who didst th} <elf, at riiidnight hours, inspire ! 
 Say, why not Cy nthia, patroness of song ? 
 As thou her cresent, she thy character, 
 Assumes, still more a goddess by the change. 
 Are there demurring wits who dare dispute 
 This revolutioB in the world inspir'd i' 
 Ye train Pierian ! to the lunar sphere. 
 In silent hour, address your ardent call 
 For aid immortal, less her brother's right. 
 She with the spheres harraoniyus nightly leads 
 The mazy danCe, and hears, their matchless strain ; 
 A strain for gods, deny'd to mortal car. 
 Transmit it heard, thou f^ilver Q,ueen of Heav'n ! 
 What title or what nauie endears thee most? 
 Cynthia ! Cyllene ! Phcebe ! — or dost hear 
 
 With liigher gust, fair P d of the skies'? 
 
 Is that the soft esichantinent calls thee down, 
 More pow'rfal than of oid Cu-ctan charm ? 
 
 * At the Ihike of Norfuik's masqderaJff.
 
 IfARCISS.V. 49 
 
 Come, bnt from heav'nly banquets w ith thee brin^ 
 
 The so:\\ of song, and whisper in mine ear 
 
 The thf-.lt divine ; or in propitious dreams 
 
 (For d reams are thine) transfuse it thro' the breast 
 
 Of thy first votary — but not thy last, 
 
 If, like thy namesake, thou art ever kind. 
 
 And kind thou wilt be, kind on such a theme ; 
 A theme so like thee, a quite lunar tlieme, 
 Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair I 
 A theme that rose all pale, and told my soul 
 'Twas night : on her fond hopes perpetual night ; 
 A night which struck a damp, a deadlier damp 
 Than that which smote me from Philander's tomb. 
 ISarcissa follows ere his tomb is clos'd. 
 Woes cluster ; rare as solitary woes ; 
 They love a train ; they tread each other's heel ; 
 Her doath invades his mournful right, and claims 
 The grief that started from my lids for him ; 
 Seizes the faithless, alienated tear, 
 Or shares it ere it falls. So frequent death, 
 v^^orrow he more than causes ; he confounds : 
 For hnman sighs his rival strokes contend, 
 And make distress distraction. Oh, Philander I 
 V. hat was thy fate ? a double fate to me ; 
 Portent and pain ! a menace and a blow ! 
 Like the black raven hov'ring o'er my peace, 
 rsot less a bird of omen than of prey. 
 It caird Narcissa long before her hour : 
 It cali'd her tender soul by break of bliss, 
 F'rom the first blossom, fi-om the buds of joy ; 
 Those few our noxious fate unblasted leaves 
 In this inclement clime of human life. 
 
 Sv. eet Hanuonist I and beautiful as sweet ;
 
 50 THECOMPLAlM. 
 
 Ajid young as beautiful ! and soft as young ! 
 And gay as soft ! and innocent as gay ! 
 And happy (if aiigbt happy here) as good ! 
 For fortune fond had built her nest on high. 
 Like birds quite exquisite of note and plume, 
 Transfix'd by Fate (\rho loves a loftiy mark) 
 How from the puramit of the grove she fell 
 And left it unharmonious ! all its charm 
 Extinguiph'd in the wonders of her song ; 
 Her song still vibrates in my ravish'd ear, 
 Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain 
 (O to forget her !) thrilling thro' my heart ! 
 
 Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy ! this group 
 Of bright ideas, flow'rs of Paradise. 
 As yet unforfeit ! in one blaze we bind, 
 Kneel and present it to the skies, as all 
 We guess of heav'n : and these were all her own ; 
 And she was mine : and I was — was ! — most blest — 
 Gay title of the deepest misery ! 
 As bodies grow more pond'rous robb'd of life, 
 Good lost weighs more in grief than gain'd in joy. 
 Like blossoraM trees o'erturn'd by vernal storm, 
 lidvely in death the beauteous ruin lay ; 
 And if in death still lovely, lovelier there, 
 Far lovelier ! Pity swells the tide of love. 
 And will not the severe excuse a sigh ! 
 Scorn the proud man that is asham'd to weep ; 
 Our tears indulg'd, indeed deserve our shame. 
 Ye, that e'er lost an angel, pity me I 
 
 Soon as the lustre latiguish'd in her eye, 
 Dawning a dimmer day on human sight, 
 And on her cheek the residence of Spring, 
 Pale omen sat, and gcatter'd fears around
 
 KA.RCISSA.. 51 
 
 3n all that saw (and who would cease to gaze 
 That once had seen?) with haste, parental haste, 
 [ flew, 1 snatchM her from the rigid north, 
 Her native ■: d, on which bleak Boreas blew, 
 A.nd bore her nearer to the sun : the sun 
 (As if thp sun could envy) cfipck'd his beam, 
 Oeny'd his^wonted succour; nor with more 
 filegret b'held her drooping than the bells 
 Of lilies ; fairest lilies, not so fair : 
 
 Q-ueen lilies! and ye painted populace ! 
 Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrosial lives! 
 In morn and evening dew your beauties bathe, 
 And drink the sun which gives your cheeks to slo^^J 
 And out-blush (mine excepted) every fair; 
 You gladlier grew, ambitious of her hand, 
 Which often cropt your odours, incense meet 
 To thought so pure ? Ye lovely fugitives I 
 Coeval race with man ; for man you smile ; 
 Why not smile at him too ! Y'ou share indeec^, 
 His sudden pass but not his constant pain. 
 
 So man is made, nought ministers delight, 
 But what his glo'.»ing passions can engage ; 
 And glowing passions bent on aught below, 
 Must, soon or late, with anguish turn the scale; 
 And anguish after rapture, how severe I 
 Rapture ! bold man ! who tempts the wrath divine, 
 By plucking fruit denyd to mortal tas^te, 
 While here, presuming on the rights of Heav'n. 
 For transport dost thou call on ev'ry hour, 
 Lorenzo ! At thy friend's expense be wise : 
 Lean not on earth : 'twill pierce thee to the heart ; 
 A broken reed at best : but oft a spear; 
 On its sharp point Peace bleed«, and hope expires.
 
 52 THE COMPLAINT. I 
 
 h 
 
 Turn hopeless thought ! turn from her: — Thought 
 
 rej)eiril 
 Resenting rallies, and wakes ev'ry woe. 
 Snalch'd ere thy prinie; and in thy bridal hour I 
 And when kind f )rtune, with thy lover smil'd ! 
 And when high-ilavour'd thy fjesh op'ning joys ! 
 And when blind manpronounc'd thy bliss complete; 
 And on a foreign shore, where strangers wept ! 
 Strangers to thee, and, more surprising still, 
 Strangers to kindness, wept. Their eyes let fall 
 Inhuman tears ! stranire tears ! that trickled down 
 From marble hearts ! obdurate tenderness ! 
 A tenderness that call'd them more severe, 
 In spite of Nature's soft persuasion steel'J ; 
 While Nature melted, Superstition rav'd ! 
 That mourn'd the dead, and thisdeny'd a grave. 
 
 Their sighs incens'd ; sighs foreign to the will | 
 Their will the tiger suck'd, outrag'd the storm: 
 For, oh! the curs'd ungodliness of zeal 
 While sinful fiesh relented, spirit nurs'd 
 In blind infnlibilitys embrace, 
 The sainted spirit petrified the breast, 
 Dcny'd the charity of dust to spread 
 O'er dust ! a charity their dogs enjoy. 
 What could I do ? what succour? what resource ? 
 With pious sacrilege a grave I stole ; 
 With impious piety that grave I wrong'd ; 
 Short in my duty, coAvard in ray grief! 
 JMorc like her murderer than friend, I crept 
 With soft suspended step, and, rau/llcd deep 
 In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh. 
 I whisper'd what should echo thru' their realms :
 
 Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the 
 
 skies. 
 Presumptuous fear ! how durst I dread her foes, 
 "While Ts'ature's loudest dictates I obey'd ? 
 Pardon necessity, blest shade? of grief 
 And indignation rival bursts I pour'd ; 
 Half-execration mingled with my pray'r; 
 Kindled at man, while I his God ador'd ; 
 Sore grudg'd the savage land her sacred dust; 
 Stamp'd the curs'd soil ; and with hdinauity 
 (Deny'd Narcissa) wished them all a grave. 
 
 Glows my resentment into guilt? what guilt 
 Can equal violations of the dead ? 
 The dead how sacred I sacred is the dust 
 Of this heav'n labour'd form, erect, divine I 
 Thisheav'n-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 ev'ry passion sleeps tiiat can otfend ; 
 When strikes us ev'ry motive that can melt; 
 When man can wreak his rancour uncontrol'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 pontifl'pride, not pontiff gall. 
 
 Far 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 suck in endless night.
 
 54 ^HE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Man hard of heart to man ! of horrid things 
 Most horrid I 'mid stupendous, highly strange 
 Yet oft his courtesies are smoother wrongs ; 
 Pride brandishes the favours he confers, 
 And contumelious his humanity : 
 What then his vengeance? Hear it not, ye stars! 
 And thou, pale Moon I turn paler at the sound ; 
 Man is to man the sorest, surest ili. 
 A previous blast foretell's the rising storrii ; 
 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 lire : 
 Ruin from man is most conceal'd when near, 
 And ?ends the dreadful tidings in the blow. 
 Is this the flight of fancy ? would it were ! 
 Heav'n's Sov'reign saves all beings, but himself. 
 That hideous sight, a naked human heart. 
 
 Fir'd is the Muj>e ? and let the muse be fir'd : 
 Who not inflam'd, when what he speaks he fo«:l$ ; 
 A!id 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 panfg; 
 Pangs numVous as the num'rous ills that swarm'd 
 O'er thy distinguish'd fate, and clust'ring the ■, 
 Thick as the locust on the land of Nile, 
 Made death more deadly, and more dark (he grave. 
 Rpf!tct (if not forgot my touching tale) 
 How was each ciicumstance with aspics arm'd ?
 
 XARCISSl.. $.5 
 
 An aspic each, and all an hydra-woe. 
 What strong Herculean virtue could suffice ?— 
 Or is it virtue to be conquered here ? 
 This hoary cheek a train of tears bedews, 
 And each tear [nourns its own distinct distress; 
 And each distress, distinctly mourn'd, demands 
 Of grief still more, as heii^hten'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 the right channel, thro' the vale of death, 
 
 The vale of death 1 that hush'd Cimmerian val», 
 "Where darkness brooding o'er unfinish'd fates, 
 IVith raven wing incumbent waits the day 
 (Dread day !) that interdicts all future changQ 
 That subterranean world, that land of ruin ! 
 Fit walk, Lorenzo, for proud lumian thought! 
 There let my thoughts-expatiate, and explore 
 Balsaiijic truths and healing sentiments, 
 Of all most wanted, and most welcome here. 
 For gay Lorenzo's sake, and for thy ow'n, 
 Hy suul ; *' The fruits of dying friends survey; 
 " Expose the vain of life ; weigh life and death ; 
 " Give death his eulogy ; thy fear subdue ; 
 " And labour that lirst palm'of noble mind:?, 
 *' A nmnly 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 in?crib'd, a mournful flow V,' 
 J-.et wisdom blossom from my mortal wound.
 
 56 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 And first, of dying fi-iends; 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 ardours, and abate 
 
 That glare of life which often blinds the wise. 
 
 Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth 
 
 Our rugged pass to death ; to brake those bars 
 
 Of terror and abhorrence Nature throws 
 
 Cross our obstructed way, and thus to make 
 
 Welcome, as safe, our port from ev'ry 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 oar aerial heights, 
 
 And ddmp'd with omen of our own decease, 
 
 Ond.'ooping pinions of ambition lowerM, 
 
 Just skim earth's surface ere we break it up. 
 
 O'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust 
 
 And save tlie 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 hov'rlng shades, 
 
 Which wait the revolution in our hearts? 
 
 Shall we disdain their silent, soft address, 
 
 Their posthumous advice, and pious pray'r ? 
 
 Senseless, as herds that graze their hallow'd grave?, 
 
 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 !
 
 liARCISeA. 5 
 
 Its reigQ will spread thy glorious conquests far, 
 And still the tumults of thy rufiled breast, 
 Auspicious <era 1 golden days, begin I 
 The thought of tleath, shall, like a god, inspire. 
 And why not think on death ? Is iife the theme 
 Of ev'ry thought ? and wish of ev'ry hour ? 
 And song of ev'ry joy ? Surprising truth! 
 The beaten spaniel's fondness not so strange. 
 To wave the num'rous ills that seize on life 
 As their own property, their lawful prey ; 
 Ere man has aieasur'd half his weary stage, 
 Ilis luxuries have left him no reserve. 
 No maiden relishes, unbroach'd delights; 
 On coid-serv'd repetitions he subsists, 
 And in the tasteless present chews the past; 
 Disgusted chews, and scarce can swallow down. 
 Like lavish ancesters. his earlier years 
 Have disinherited his future hours, 
 Which starve on orts, and glean their farmer field. 
 Live ever here, Lorenzo I — shocking thought! 
 So shocking, they who wish disown it, too; 
 Disown froru sharae what they from folly crave. 
 Live ever in tiie womb, nor see the light ! 
 For what live ever here ? — with lab'ring step 
 To tread our former footsteps ? pace the rouud 
 Eternal ? to climb life's worn, heavy wheel, 
 Which draws up nothing new ? to beat, and beat 
 The beaten track? to bid each wretched day 
 The former mock? to surfeit on the same, 
 And yawn our joys ? or thank a luisery 
 For change, tho' sad ? to see what we have seen * 
 Hesr, till unheard, the same old slabber'd tale? 
 B
 
 58 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 To taste the tasted and at each return 
 Less tasteful ? o'er our palates to decant 
 Anotlier vintage ? strain a flatter year, 
 Thro* loaded vessels, and a laxertone? 
 Crazy machines to grind earth's wasted fruits ! 
 Ill ground and worse concocted ! load, not life » 
 The rational foul kennels of excess! 
 Still-streaming thoroughfares of dull debauch! 
 ■iVernbling each gulp, lest death should snatch tbei 
 bowl. 
 Such of our f^.ne ones is the wish refin'd ! 
 So would they have it : elegant desire ! 
 'Why not invite the bellowing stalls and wilds? 
 But such examples might their riot awe. 
 Thro' want of virtue, that is, want of thought, 
 (Tho' on bright thought they father all their flights) 
 To what are they reduc'd ? to love and hate 
 The same vain world ; to censure and espouse 
 '[his painted shrew of life, who calls them fool 
 Each moment of each day ; to flatter bad 
 J'hro' dread of worse ; to cling to this rude rock^, 
 .Barren, to ihcun, of good, and sharp with ills, 
 And hourly blacken'd with impending storms, 
 And infauaous for wrecks of human hope — 
 Scar'd at the gloomy gulph that yawns beneath. 
 Such are their triumphs ! such their pangs of joy. 
 »Tis time, high time, to shift this dismal scene. 
 This hugg'ti, this hideous state, what art can cure? 
 One only : but that one what all may reach ; 
 Virtue — she, wonder-working goddess ! charms 
 That rock to bloom, and tames the painted shrew 3 
 And, what will more surprise, Loreiiso I gives
 
 NAECISSA. 59 
 
 To life's sick, nauseous iteratloa, change; 
 And etraiteas Nature's circle to a liue. 
 Believ'st thou this, Lorenzo ? lend an ear, 
 A pEtieut ear, thoul't blush to disbelieve. 
 
 A languid, leideo iteration reign?, 
 And ever muft, o'er those whose joy? are joys 
 Of sight, fetuell, taste. The cuckoo-seasons sing 
 The same dull note to such as nothing prize, 
 But what thoie seasons, from the teeming earth, 
 To doting sease indulge. But nobler minds, 
 Which relifh fruits uaripen'd by the sun, 
 Idake their days variou>, various as the dyes 
 On the dove's neck, which waatou in his rays. 
 On minds of dove-like inooceuce possess'd, 
 On lighten'd minds, that bask iu vii-tue's* beams, 
 Nothing hangs tedious, nothing old revolv(>s 
 In that for which they long, for which they live, 
 tfheir glorious efforts, wing'd with heavenly hope, 
 Each rising morning sees still higher rise ; 
 Each bounteous dawn itsnoveJty presents 
 To worth maturing, nev.* strenth, luf^ter, fame ; 
 "While Nature's circle, like a chariot-wheel 
 Rolling beneath their elevated aims. 
 Makes their fair prospect fairer ev'ry hour ; 
 Advancing virtue in a line to bliss ; 
 Virtue which Christian motives best inspire ! 
 And bliss, which Christian scuemes alone insure ! 
 
 And shell w<» then, for virtue's sake, commence 
 Apostates? and turn infidels for joy ? 
 A truth it is few doabt. but fewer trust, 
 *' He sJas agair-st this H:>^ who slights the next." 
 T/hat h thl? life? hj^v fc^^ Ui^ir f'Av'rit^ know I
 
 60 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Fond in the dark, and blind in our embrace, 
 
 By pas-;!' tia'ely loring Hfe, we mrtke 
 
 LovM life unlovely, huztring her to death. 
 
 We give to time etpi-nicy's regard, 
 
 And, dreaming, take our pajssage for our port. 
 
 Life has no value as an eiu)^ but means; 
 
 An end deplorable I a means divine I 
 
 When 'tis our all, His nothing , worse than nought ; 
 
 A nest of pains ; when held as nothing, much. 
 
 Like some fair hurn'rists, life is most enjoy'd 
 
 "VThen courted least ; most worth, when disesteeniM ; 
 
 Then 'tis the seat of comfort, rieh in peace; 
 
 In prospect richer far; important! awful 1 
 
 Not lo be mention'd but with shouts of praise I 
 
 Not to be thought on but with tides of joy I 
 
 The mighty basis of eternal bliss I 
 
 "Where now the barren rock ? the painted shrew ? 
 Where now Lorenzo, life's eternal round ? 
 Have I not made my triple promise good ? 
 Vain is the world ; but only to the vain. 
 To what compare we tl»en this varying scene. 
 Whose worth ambiguous, rises and declines. 
 Waxes and wanes? (In all, propitious Night 
 Assist me here) compare it to the mooa ; 
 Dark in herself, and indigent ; but rich 
 In borrowM lustre from a hiirlier sphere. 
 When gross guilt Interposes, lab'ring earth, 
 O'ershadovv'd mourns a deep eclipse of joy ; 
 Her joys, at brightest, pallid, to that font 
 Of full elTulgent glory whence they flow. 
 
 Nor is that glory di^^tant. Oh, Lorenzo, 
 A good man and an angel I these between
 
 NARCISSA. CI 
 
 How thin the barrier I what divides their fate ? 
 
 Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year ; 
 
 Or if an age, it is a moment still ; 
 
 A moment, or eternity's forgot. 
 
 Then be what once they were who now are goda ; 
 
 Be what Philander wag. and claim the skies. 
 
 Start!* timid Nature at the gloomy pass ? 
 
 The foft transition call it, and he chcer'd: 
 
 Such it is often, and why not to thee ? 
 
 To hope the best is piou«, brave, and wise • 
 
 And may itself procure what it presumes. 
 
 Life is much Gatter'd, Death i« much traduc'd; 
 
 Compare the rivals, and the kinder crown. 
 
 ** Strange competition?'' — True, Lorenzo, strange ! 
 
 So little life can cast into the scale. 
 
 Life make? the soul dependent on the dust ; 
 Death gives lier wings to mount above the spheres. 
 Thro' chinks, styl'd organs, dim life peeps at light; 
 Death bursts th' involving cloud, and all is day j 
 AH eye, all ear, the diseaibody'd pow'r. 
 Death has feign'd evils nature shall not feel ; 
 Life, ills substantial, wisdom cannot shun. 
 Is not the mighty mind, that son of Heav'n, 
 By tyrant Lifedethron'd. imprison'd, pain'd ? 
 By death enlarg'd, ennobi'd, deify'd ? 
 Death but entombs the body, life the soul. 
 
 '* Is death then guiltless? how hf» marks his way 
 *' With dreadful waste of what deservfs to shine I 
 "Art, genius, fortune, elevated pow'r; 
 *' With various lustres these light up the world, 
 " Which death puts out, and darkens human rac€.** 
 I grant Lorenzo, this indictment just ;
 
 C2 '•HB COMPLAINT. 
 
 The sage, peer, potentate, kin^, conqnerer ! 
 Death hu'nblesthe&e; more barb'ious Life the man. 
 Life is the triumph of our mould'ring clay ; 
 Death of the spirit infinite! divine! 
 Death has ro dread but what frail life imparts ; 
 Nor life true joy but what kind death improves, 
 Ko h\h-r has life to boast till death c&n i^ive 
 Far greater. Life's a debtor in the grare ; 
 Dark lattice lotting in eternal day ! 
 
 Lorenzo, blush at fond r. ess for a life 
 "Which !>ends celti.stial souls on errands vile, 
 To CHter for the :-e!ise, and serve at boards 
 "Where ev'ry ranker of the wiid^ perhaps 
 Each reptile ju-itly claims our upper-hand. 
 Luxurious feast! a soul, a soul iniinortal, 
 In all the dainties of a brute berair'd I 
 Lorenzo, blush at terror for a death 
 "Which gives thee to repose in festive bow'fs, 
 "Where nectars sparkle, angels minister, 
 And more than angels shnre, and raise, and crona, 
 And eternize, tbf birth bloom, bursts of bliss. 
 What need f more? O death, tho palm is thine. 
 
 Then welcome, death 1 thj dreaded harbingers, 
 Age and disease ; Disease tho' long my guest, 
 That plucks ray nerves, those tender strings of life ; 
 Which pluck'd a little more, will toll the bell 
 That calls my few friends to my funeral; 
 Where feeble Nature drops, perhaps, a tear. 
 While Reason and cieligion, better taught. 
 Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb 
 With wreath triumphant. Death is victory, 
 It binds in chains the raging ills of life :
 
 NA.BCIESA. 0,J 
 
 Liist and aoibition, Wrath and Avarice, 
 Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his pow'r. 
 That ills corrosive, cares importunate, 
 Are not immortal too, O death is thine. 
 Our day of desolation ! — name it right, 
 'Tis our great pay-day : -'tis our harvest, rich 
 And ripe. What tho' the sickle, sometimes keen, 
 Just scars us as we reap the golden grain ? 
 More than thy fa:\]m, O Gilead ! heals the wound. 
 Birth's feeble cry. and Death's deep dismal groan, 
 Are slender tributes lovv-tax'd Nature pays 
 For mighty gain ; the gain of each a life I 
 But O I the last the former so transcends, 
 Life dies compared; Life lives beyond the grave. 
 
 And ieel I, Death, no joy IVum thought of thee? 
 Death the great counsellor, who man ins{)ire3 
 With every nobler thought and fairer deed l 
 Death, the deliverer, who rescues man I 
 Death, ihe rewarder, who the rescu'd crowns! 
 Death, that absolves, my birth, a curse without it ' 
 Rich Death that realizes all my cares, 
 Toii.^, virtues, hopes ; without it a chimera l 
 Death, of all pain the period, not of joy ; 
 Joy's source and subject still subsist unhurt ; 
 One in my soul, and one in her great sire, 
 Tho' the four winds were warring for my dust. 
 Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night, 
 Tho' prison'd there, my dust toio I reclaim, 
 (To dust when drop proud natures'^ proudest spLtres) 
 And live entire. Death is the crown of life: 
 Where death deny'd, poor man would live in vain r 
 Where death denv'd, to ih-p ',— .m1,i not bo lif*^ •
 
 G4 THE COMPLAINT. — XARCISSA. 
 
 Where death deny'd, e'en fools wouhl 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 give us more than was in Eden lost. 
 This king of terrors is the prince of peace. 
 Wheo shall I die to vanity, pain, death? 
 When fchall I die? — when shall I live for ever ?
 
 THE 
 
 COMPLAINT. 
 
 vwvw 
 
 NIGHT IV. 
 
 vwvw 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN TRIU3IPH. 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 Tht only Curt for the Fear of Death ; and proper Sciiti- 
 mirAs of Heart on that inestimable Blessing. 
 
 INSCEIBED TO THE HONOURABLE MR. YORKE. 
 
 A MUCH indebted muse, O Yorke I 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 sov'reign cure. 
 
 Why start at death ? where is he ? Death arriv'<!, 
 Is past ; not come, or gone, he's never here. 
 Ere hope, sensation fails; black-boding man 
 Receives, not suffers, Death's tremendous bi;;\v. 
 The kneil the shroud, the mattock, and the gicivc . 
 The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the wor:c , 
 These are the buiibears of a winter's eve ; 
 The terrors of the living, not the dead. 
 Imaginations fool, and errors wretch, 
 Mao makes a death which Nature never made , 
 Then on the point of his own fancy falls, 
 And feels a thousand deaths ia fearing one. 
 D2
 
 g6 iEE COMPLAINTi 
 
 But were Death friglitful, what has age to fear ? 
 If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe, 
 And phclter in his hoi>|>itabIe gloom. 
 I scarce can meet a inonuiueut but holds 
 My younger ; ev'ry 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 j 
 Of things, the vanity, of men, the fiaws ; 
 Flaws in the best ; the many, flaw all o'ei* ; 
 As leopards spotted, or as Elhiops dark ; 
 Vivacious ill ; good dying imiiiature ; 
 (How immature Narcissa's marble tells) 
 And at its death bequeathing endless pain ; 
 His heart tho' 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, 
 liong-rifled life of siveet can yield no more, 
 But from our comment on the comedy, 
 Pleasring reflections on parts well sustainM, 
 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 .^cene, or hiss me there.
 
 THE cnuisTivx TUixr:.rpn. 07 
 
 What a pert race starts up ! the strangers ga^^c, 
 And I at thera ; my neiglibour is unknown ; 
 Nor that the worst. Ah aie ! t!ie dire effect 
 Of loit'ring here, of death defrauded long j 
 Of old so gracious (and ht that suffice) 
 My very master knows aie not. 
 
 Shall 1 dare say, peculiar is the fate? 
 I've been so long rcmember'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 pcur my plaint, 
 They drink it as the nectar of the great, 
 And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to morrow ; 
 Refusal cans't thou wear a smoother form ? 
 
 Indulge me, nor conceive I drop my thenocj 
 Who cheapens life, abates the fear of death. 
 Twice told the period spent on stubbjl-n Troy, 
 Court-favour, yet untaken, I besiege ; 
 Ambition's ill-judged eSbrt to be rich. 
 Alas I ambition makes my little less, 
 Embittering the possess'd. Why wish for more ;' 
 AVishing of all employments, is the worst! 
 Philosophy's reverse, and health's decay I 
 Were I as plump as stallM Theology, 
 Wishing would u'aste 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 leid 
 I^Iy heart at rest beneath this humble shed.
 
 68 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 The wnrl J's a stately bark, on dangerous seas 
 
 With pleasure teen, but boarded at or.r 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; 
 
 T see the circling hunt of noisy men 
 
 Eurst law's inclosure, leap the mounds of right, 
 
 Pursuing and pursu'd, each other's prey ; 
 
 As wolves for rapine, as the fox for wiles, 
 
 Till death, that mighty hunter, earths them ail. 
 
 "Why all this toil for triiiraphs of an hour? 
 What tho' we wade in wealth or soar in fame 
 Earth's hurhest station ends in. " here he lies ;" 
 And '• dust to dust," concludes her noblest eong. 
 If this song lives, posterity shall know 
 One, tho' 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 Bcherae 
 For future vacancies in church or state, 
 Some avocation deeming it — to die : 
 I "nbit by rage canine of dying rich ; 
 Guilt's blunder ! and the Inndest laugh of Hell. 
 
 O my coevals I remnantsof yourselves I 
 Poor human ruins tott-ring o'er the grave I 
 Shall we, shall aged men, like aged trees, 
 Strike deeper their vile root, and closer cling', 
 Still more enamour'd of this ^v retched soiif
 
 xni cnRisTiAK TBiCiirn. 69 
 
 Shall our pale wither'd hands be stil! stretch'd out, 
 Trerubiing, at once, with eagerness and Ur-^' ! 
 "With av'rice and convulsions, grasfjing hard ? 
 Grasping at air ! for what has earth beside? 
 IVIan wants but little, nor that little long: 
 How •soon must he resign his very dust, 
 "Which frugal Nature lent h-ra for an hour 
 Years unexperienc'ti vxx^h ^jd narj'rou3 ills ; 
 And soon as man, expert Trom time, has foun<i 
 The key of life, it opes the gates of death. 
 
 When in this 7ale of years I backward look, 
 And mi?s such number'', 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 ara I fond of life, 
 Who scarce can think it possible 1 live? 
 Alive by miracle! or, what is next. 
 Alive by Mead ! If i am still alive, 
 Who long have bnry'd what gives life to live^ 
 Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought. 
 Life's lee rs not more fhalluw than impure 
 And vapid : Sense and Reason shew the door 
 Call for my bier, and point me to the dust 
 
 O thou great Arbiter of life and deatli ! 
 Xature'3 immortal, immaterial gun ! 
 Whose all proline beam late cali'd me forth. 
 From darkness, teeming darknegg, where I lay 
 The worms 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 ixistence ; and could know
 
 fO THB COMPLAINT. 
 
 No motive but my bliss ; and hast orc'ainM 
 A rise in biepsing I with the patriarch's joy 
 Thy call 1 foJiaw to the land unknown: 
 I ivu?t in tbee, and know in whom I trust : 
 Or life or deatli is equal ; neither weighs ; 
 All weight in this — (J let me li^ve to thee ! 
 
 Thn' Nature's terrors thus may be represt. 
 J?till frowns grira 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 rae 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 I here it stings; 
 Who can appease its anguish ? How it burns? 
 What hand the barb'd, envenom'd, tho't can draw ? 
 What healing hand can pour the balm of peace, 
 And turn ray sight undaunted on the tomb ? 
 
 With joy, — with grief, that healing hand I see : 
 Ab ! too conspicuous ! it is fix'd on high, 
 On high ? — what means ray frenzy ? I blaspheme ? 
 Alas I 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 ; 
 Horror receives us, and the dismal wish
 
 THE CHRISTIAN TBIUilPH. 7l 
 
 Creation had been smolherM in her birth — 
 Darkness his curtain, and his bed the dust; 
 "When stars and sun are dust beneath his throne ! 
 In heav'ii itself can such indulgence dwell ? 
 O wliat a groan was there ? a groan nut his: 
 He seiz'd our dreadful right, the load sustained, 
 And heav'd the mountain from a guilty world. 
 A thousand worlds so bought, were bought too dear; 
 Sensations new in angel's bosoms rise, 
 Suspend their song, and make a pause in bliss. 
 
 O for their song to reach my lofty theme ! 
 Inspire me, Night 1 with all thy tuneful spheres, 
 Much rather thou who dost these spheres inspire ! 
 Whilst I with si^raphs share serapiiic themes, 
 And shew to men the dignity of man, 
 Lest I blaspheme my subject with my song, 
 Shall Pagan pages glow celestial flame, 
 And Christian languish ? On our hearts, not heads^ 
 Falls the foul infamy. ^ly heart, awake : 
 What can awake thee, unawak'd by this, 
 " Expended Deity on human weal i"' 
 Feel the great truths which burst the tenfold night 
 Of heathen error, with a golden flood 
 Of endless day. To feel is to be fir'd ; 
 And to believe, Lorenzo, is to feel. 
 
 Thou most indulgent, most tremendous Pow'r i 
 Still more tremendous for thy wond'rous love; 
 That arms with awe more awful thy commands, 
 And foul transgression dipt in sevenfold guilt ; 
 How our hearts tremble at thy love immense I 
 In love Immense, inviolably Just I 
 Thou I rather than thy justice should be stain-d,
 
 72 ' 3iIE COMPLAIXT. 
 
 Didst gtain the cross ; and, werk of wonders far 
 The u'l'putest, that thy dearest far miijht bleed. 
 
 Bold thought I shall I dare speak it or repress ? 
 Should man more execrate or boast the guilt 
 Which rous'd such vengeance? which such love in- 
 
 fiaoiM ! 
 O'er guilt (bow mountainous!) with outstretchM arms 
 Stern Justice, and soft-smiling Love, embrace, 
 Supporting, In full fnajesty, thy throne, 
 When seemM its majesty to need support, 
 Or that, or man, inevitably lost; 
 What but the fathomless of thought divine 
 Could labour such expedient from despair, 
 And rescue both ? Beth rescue ! both exalt I 
 O how are both exalted by the deed ? 
 The wondVous deed ! or shall I call it more ? 
 A wonder in Omnipotence itself I 
 A my.«tery, no less to gods than men ! 
 
 Not thus our infidels th' Eternal draw 
 A God all o'er coiisumjiiate, absolute, 
 Full orb'd, iu his whole round of rays complete; 
 They set at odds Heav'n's jarring attributes. 
 And with one excellence, another wound ; 
 Maim heav'a's perfection, break its equal beams, 
 Bid Dercy triumph over — God himself, 
 UndeifyM by their opprobrious praise ; 
 A God all mercy is a God unjust. 
 Ye brainless wits ! ye baptiz'd infidels ! 
 Ye v,'orbe for mending ! wash'd to fouler stains 5 
 The ransom was paid down ; the fund of heav'n, 
 Heaven's inexhaustible, exhausted fund, 
 Amazing and amaz'd, pour'd forth the price^
 
 THE CTIRISTI AN TRIUMPH. 73 
 
 Al! price beyond ; tho' curious to compute, 
 Archangels fail'd to cast the mighty sum; 
 Its value vast ungra>p"d by minds create, 
 For ever hides and glows in the Supreme. 
 
 And was the ransom paid ? It \va?, and paid 
 (What can exalt the bounty more) for you. 
 The sun beheld it — No, the shocking scene 
 Drove back his chariot ; Midnight veil'd his face ; 
 JNot such as this, not such as nature makes ; 
 A midnight Nature shudder'd to behold ; 
 A midnight new! a dread eclipse (without 
 Opposing sphere?) from her Creator's frovrn !* 
 Sun ! didst thou fly thy 31aker's pain ? or start 
 At that enormous load of human guilt 
 Which bow'd his blessed head, o'erwhelm'd his crosf. 
 Made groan the centre, burst earth's marble womb 
 With pangs, strange pangs ! deliver'd of her dead ? 
 Hell how I'd ; and heav'n that hour let fall a tear ; 
 Heav'n wept, that men might smile I Heav'n bled 
 
 that man 
 Might never die ?— — 
 
 And is devotion Virtue ? 'Tis conjpelPd. 
 What heart of stone but glows attho'ts like these? 
 Much contemplations mount us, and should mount 
 The mind still higher, nor e'er glance on man 
 Unraptur'd, uninflara'd. — Where roll my thoughts 
 To rest from wonders I other wonders rise, 
 And strike w^here'er they roll ; my soul is caught ; 
 Heav'n's sov'reign blessings elust'ring from the cross, 
 Rnsh on her in a throng, and close her round 
 The prisoner of amaze I — In his blest life 
 I sse the path, and in his death the price,
 
 74' THECOMPLAiNt. 
 
 And in his great ascent the proof supreme 
 Of imvnortality — And did he rise? 
 Hear, O ye Nations 1 Hear it, O ye Dead ! 
 He rose, he rose ! he burst the bars of death. 
 J.ift up your heads, ye everlasting gates 1 
 And give tlie Iviiig of Glory to come in. 
 Who is the iiing of Glory ? He who left 
 His throue of glory for the pang of death. 
 Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates, 
 And ^ve the King of Glory to comeio. 
 "Who is the iving of Glory ? He who slew 
 The rav'nousfoe tbat gorg'd all humnn race! 
 The King of Glory he, whose glory fjll'd 
 Heav'n with amazement at his love to man ; 
 And with divine cunipiacency beheld 
 Po w'rs most illumm'd wilder'd in the theme. 
 
 The theme, the joy, how then shall man sustain ? 
 Oh theburstgates I crush'd sting lUernolish'd throne ' 
 Last gasp! of vanquish'd death. Shout, earth and 
 
 heav'n, 
 This 8um of good to mv^n 1 whose nature then 
 Took wing, and mounted with him from the tomb. 
 Thea, then, I rose; then lirst humanity 
 Trinraphanl passM the crystal ports of light, 
 (StUT'cndous gnestl) and seiz'd eternal youth, 
 Seiz'd in our name. E'er since 'tis blasphemous 
 To call man mortal. Man's mortality 
 "Was then transfer'd to death ; and heav'n's duration 
 Unalienably seal'dto this frail frame, 
 This child of dnst — Man, all-immortal! hail; 
 Hail. Heav'n. all lavish of strange gifts to man ! 
 Thine all the glory, man's the boundless bliss.
 
 THE enRi3TiA.NT!iirMrn. 75 
 
 Where ara I wrapt by tlils triuranliant theme, 
 Oa C Ijnstian Joy's exulting wing, above 
 rh' Afniiaii Qio:jnt! — Vlas sinal! cause for joy 1 
 What if to pain iinmoital! if extent 
 Of being, to preclude a close of woe ? 
 Where, then, aiy boast of imraoriality ? 
 I boast it still, tho' cover'd o'er with guilt ; 
 For guiU, not innocence, his life he pourM ; 
 'Tis guilt alone can justify his death ; 
 Nor that, unless his death can justily. 
 Relenting guilt in heav'n's indulgent sight. 
 If sick of folly I relent, he writes 
 >Iy nac&e in heav'n with that inverted fpcar 
 {A speardcep-tip't in blood 1) which pierc'd his tide, 
 And open'd there a font for all mankind, 
 Who strive, who combat crimes, to drink and live : 
 This, only this, subdues tfee fear of death. 
 
 And what is this ? — survey the wond'rous cars * 
 And at each step let higher wonder rise I 
 *' Pardon for inrinitc offence I and pardon 
 '• Thro' means that speak its value infinite ! 
 " A pardon bought with blood ! with blood divine I 
 " With blood divine of him I made my foe ! 
 t' Persisted to provoke ! tho' woo'd and aw'd, 
 k' Bless'il and chastis'd, a flagrant rebel stiil : 
 " A lebel 'midst the thunders of his throne I 
 " Nor I alone! a rebel universe! 
 ** My species op in arms ! not one exempt I 
 "Yet for the foulest of the foul he dies ; 
 ** Most joy 'd for the redeem'd from deepest guilt t 
 ** As if our race were held of highest rank, 
 * And Godhead dearer as more kind to man T'
 
 75 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Bound evVy heart, and ev'ry bosom barn! 
 O what a scale of mlraelesis here! 
 Its lowest roimd b:i:^i phmted on the skies ; 
 Its tow'ring summit lost beyond the thought 
 Of man or angel ! Oh that I could climb 
 The wonderful ascent with equal praise ! 
 Praise ! flow forever (if astonishment 
 "Will give thee leave) my praise i for ever flow ; 
 Praise ardent, cordial, constant, to high heav'n 
 More fragrant than Arabia sacrific'd, 
 And all her Sj)icy mountains in a flame. 
 
 So dear, so due to Heav'n, shall praise descend 
 "With her soft plurae (from plausive angels wing 
 First pluck'd by man) to tickle mortal ears, 
 Thus diving in the pockets of the great ? 
 Is praise the perquisite of ev'ry pav/, 
 Tho' black as hell that grapples well for gold P 
 O love of gold thou meanest of amours ! 
 Shall praise her odours waste on virtue's dead ; 
 liimbalm the base, perfume the stench of guilt, 
 lEaru dirty bread by washing Ethiops fair, 
 Removing filth, or sinking it from sight, 
 A scavenger in scenes, where vacant posts 
 Like gibbets yet untenanted, expect 
 Their future ornaments? From courts and throne& 
 Return, apostate Praise ! thou vagabond ! 
 Thou prostitute ! to thy first love return ; 
 Thy first, thy greatest, once unrival'd theme. 
 
 There flow redundant, like Meander flow. 
 Back to thy fountain, to that parent pow'r 
 Who gives the tongue to sound, the thought to soar, 
 Tkt soul to b«. Men homage pay to men ;
 
 THE CHRISTIAN TJRIUMPH. 77 
 
 Thoughtless beneath whose dreadful eye they bow. 
 In mutual awe profound, of clay to clay. 
 Of guilt to guilt, and turn their backs on thee, 
 Great Sire I whom thrones eelestial ceaseless sing, 
 To prostrate angels an amazing «cene ! 
 O the piesuiuption of man's awe for man I — 
 Mail's Author, End, K^storer, Law, and Judge! 
 Thine, all ; day thine, and thine this glnona of night, 
 Willi all her wealth, with all her radiant worlds, 
 What, night eternal, but a frown from thee ? 
 What heav'n's meridian glory but thy smile ? 
 And shall not praise be thine, not human praise, * 
 While heaven's high ho?t on hallelujahs live? 
 
 O raay I breathe no longer than I breathe 
 My soul in praise to niM who gave my soul, 
 And all her infinite of prospect fair, 
 €ut thro' the shades of hell, great Love I by thee 
 Oh most adorable I mo^t uaador'd I 
 Where shall that praise begin which ne'ershould end? 
 "Where'er I turn, what claim on al 1 applause ! 
 How is Night's sable mantle iabourM o'er. 
 How richly wrought with attributp»> divine ! 
 What wisdom shines! what love I This midnight 
 
 pomp, 
 This gorgeous arch, with golden vrorlds inlaid I 
 Built with divine ambition I nought to thee ; 
 For others this profusion. Thou, apart. 
 Above, beyond. Oh tell me, miglity ^lind ! 
 Where art thou ? Shall I dive into the deep ? 
 C*ll to ihe sun? or ask the roaring winds ' 
 
 For tlieir Creator ? Shall I question loud 
 The thunder, if ia that th' Almighty dwell? P
 
 78 THE C03IPLAINT. 
 
 Or holds HE furious storinp in straiten'd reiae, 
 And biflls fierce whirlwinds wheel hie rapid car? 
 
 What mean these questions ! — Trembliog I re- 
 tract ; 
 My pro$:trat€ soul adores the present God : 
 Praise I a distant Deity ? He tunes 
 3Iy voice (if tun'd :) the nerve that writes sustains 
 Wrapped in his being I resound hig praise : 
 But tbo' past all difFus'd, without a shore 
 His essence, local is his throne (as meet) 
 To gather the disperse (as standards cali 
 The listed from afar !) to fix a point, 
 A central point, collective of his sons, 
 Since finite ev'ry nature but his own. 
 
 The nameless he, whose nod is Nature's birth, 
 Ana Nature's shield the shadow of his hand; 
 Her dissolution, his suspended smile ! 
 The great First-Last ! pavillion'd liigk he sits 
 In darkness from excessive splecdour, borne, 
 By gods unseen, unless thro' lustre lost. 
 His glory, to created glory bright 
 As that to eentral horrors : he looks down 
 On all that soars, and spans immensity. 
 
 Tho' night unnumber'd worlds unfolds to view, 
 Boundless creation ? what art thou ? a beam, 
 A mere effluvium of his majesty. 
 And shall an atom of this atom-werld 
 Mutter, in dust and sin, the theme of heav'n ! 
 Down to the centre should I send my thought, 
 Thro' beds of glitt'ring ore and glowing gems, 
 Their beggared blaze wants lustre for my lay; 
 Goes out in darkness ; if on tovt-'riog v/ing,
 
 THE CHRISTIAN TRITTMPH. 70 
 
 T send it thro' the boundless vault of stars, 
 (The stars, tho' rich, what dross their gold to Thee, 
 Great, good, wise, woaderful, eternal Ivinj !) 
 If to those conscious stars thy throne around, 
 Praise ever-pouring, and imbibing bliss, 
 And ask their strain ; they want it. more they want, 
 Poor their abundance, humble their sublime, 
 Languid their energy, their ardour cold: 
 Indebted still, their highest rapture burns, 
 Short of its mark, defeclive, tho' divine. 
 
 Still more — this theme is man's, and man's alone ; 
 Their wast appointments reach it not; they see 
 On earth a bounty not indulg'd on high, 
 And downward look for heav'n's superior praise ! 
 First-born of Ether I high in fields ©f light ! 
 View man, to see the glory of your God ! 
 Could angels envy, they had envy'd here: 
 And some did envy : aud the rest, tho' gods. 
 Yet still gods unredeem'd (there triumphs man. 
 Tempted to weigh the dust against the skies) 
 They less w'ould feel, tho' more adorn ray theme. 
 They sung creation ( for in that they shar'd ;) 
 How rose in melody that child of Love ! 
 Creation's great superior, man ! is thine; 
 Thine is redemption : they just gave the kej, 
 *ris thine to raise and eternize the song, 
 Tho' human, yet divine ; for should not this 
 Raise man o'er man, and kindle seraph? here? 
 Redemption ! 'twas creation more sublime ; 
 Redemption ! 'twas the labour of the i^kies-' 
 Far more than labour — it was death in heaven, 
 A truth so strange, 'twere bold to thiak it truer, 
 If not far bolder still to disbelieve.
 
 80 THE COMPLAIKT. 
 
 Here pause antlpomier. Was there death in hev'n? 
 "What then on earth ? en earth, which struck the 
 
 blow ? 
 Who struck it ? Who ? — O how is man enlarg'd, 
 Seen thio' this raetlium : How the piginy toWrs; 
 How counterpoisM his origin from dust ! 
 How counterpois'd to dust his sad return I 
 How voided his vasi distance froju the skies ! 
 How near he presses on the seraph's wing ! 
 Which is the seraph? Which the born of clay? 
 How this demonstrates, thro' the thickest cloud 
 Of guilt and clay condensed, the ^on of Heav'n ! 
 The double San ; the niaiie, and the re-made ! 
 And -<hall Heav'ns double property be lost ? 
 Man's double madness only can destroy. 
 To man the bleeding Gross has proinis'd all ; 
 The bleeding Cross has sworn eternal grace. 
 Who gave his life, what grace shall he deny ? 
 O ye, who from this rock of ages leap, 
 Apostates, pluiiging headlong in the deep ! 
 What cordial joy, what consolation strong, 
 Whatever winds arise, or billows roll, 
 Or int'rest in the Master of the storm ! 
 Cling there, and in wreck'd Nature's ruin smile. 
 While vile Apostates tremble in a calm. 
 
 Man, know thyself, all wisdom centres there. 
 To none man seems ignoble but to man. 
 Angels that grandeur, men o'erlook, admire; 
 How lo'ig shall human nature be their book, 
 Degenerate mortal ! and unread by thee ? 
 The beam dim reason sheds shews wonders there : 
 What biih contents ! illustrious faculties I
 
 THE CHKISTIAN TRirilPH- 81 
 
 Batihe grand comment which displays at full 
 Our human height, scarce sever'd from divine, 
 By heav'n compos'd, was publish'd on the Cross. 
 
 Who looks on that, and sees not in himself 
 An awful stranger, a terrestial God ? 
 A glorious partner with the Deity 
 In that high attribute, irnraortal life? 
 If a God bleeds, he bleeds not for a worm. 
 I gaze, and as I gaze ray mounting soul 
 Catches strange lire. Eternity I at thee. 
 And drops the world — or, rather, more enjoys, 
 How chang'd the face of Nature I how improvM '. 
 What seem'd a chaos, shines a glorious world, 
 Or, what a world, an Eden ; heighteu'd all I 
 It is another scene, another self I 
 And jtill another, as time rolls along, 
 And that a self, far more illustrious still. 
 ISeyond long age?, yet roll'd up in shades 
 Unpieic'd by bold conjectures keenest ray, 
 What evolutions of surprising fate I 
 How Nature opens, and receives my soul 
 In boundless walks of raptur'd thought ! where gode 
 E'- 'counter and embrace me ! What new births 
 Of strange adventure, foreign to the sun ; 
 Where what now charms, perhaps whate'er cxistE 
 Old time, and fair creation, are forgot! 
 
 Is this extravagant ? of man we form 
 Extravagant conception to be just: 
 Conception unconfin'd wants wings to reach him ; 
 Beyond its reach the Godhead only more. 
 He the great Father ! kindled at one flame 
 The world of rationalsj one spirit pour'd 
 E
 
 82 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 From spirit's awful fountain ; poui'd himself 
 Thro' all tlieir souls, but not an equal stream ; 
 Profuse, or frugal, of th' inspiring God. 
 As his wise plan deraaniletl ; and when past 
 Their various trials, in their various spheres, 
 ff they continue rational, as made, 
 Resorbs them all into himself again. 
 His throne their centre, and his smile their crown. 
 
 Why doubt we, then, the glorious truth to sing, 
 Tho' yet unsung, as deem'd, perhaps, too bold ? 
 A ngels are raen of a superior kind ; 
 Angels are men in lighter habit clad, 
 High o'er celestial mountains wlng'd in flight ; 
 And men are angels' loaded for an hour, 
 Who wade this miry vale, and climb with pain, 
 And slipp'ry step, the bottom of the steep. 
 Angels their failings, mortals have their praise; 
 %yhile here, of corps ethereal, such enroll'd, 
 And summon'd to the glorious standard soon, 
 Which flames eternal crimson thro' the skies; 
 iNor are our brothers thoughtless of their kin, 
 Yet absent; but not absent from their love. 
 Michael has fought our battles ; Raphael sung 
 Our triumphs; Gabriel on our errands flown, 
 Sent by the Sov'reign : and are these, O man 
 Thy friends, thy warm allies ? and thou (shame buro 
 The cheek to cinder I) rival to the brute? 
 
 Religion's all. Descending from the skies 
 To wretched man, the goddess in her left 
 Holds out this world, and in her right the next. 
 Religion ! the sole voucher man is man ; 
 Supporter sole of man above himself ^
 
 THE CHRISTIAH TRIUMPH. 83 
 
 E'en in this night of frailty, change and death, 
 She gives the soul a soul that acts a god. 
 Religion'. Providence! an after-state I 
 Here is firm footing; here is solid rock ; 
 This can support us ; all is sea besides : 
 Sinks under us; bestorms, and then devours. 
 His hand the good man fastens on the skies, 
 And bids earth rool, nor feels her idle whirl. 
 
 As when a wretch, from thick polluted air, 
 Darkness and stench, and suiTocatiug darapp, 
 And dungeon-horrors, by kind fate discharg'd, 
 Climbs some fair eminence, where ether pure 
 Surrounds iiim, and Elysian prospects rise, 
 His heart exults, his spirits cast their load, 
 As if new-born he triumphs in the change I 
 So joys the snul, when from inglorious aims 
 And sordid sweets from feculence and froth, 
 Of ties terrestrial set at large, she mounts 
 To Reason's region, her own element, 
 Breathes ho[)es immortal, and affects the skies. 
 
 Religon ! thou the soul of happiness. 
 And, groaning Calvary, of thee, there shine 
 The noblest truths; there strongest motives sting; 
 There sacred violence assaults the soul ; 
 There nothing but compulsion is forborn. 
 Can love allure us ? or can terror awe ? 
 He weeps ! — the falling drop puts out the sun. 
 He sighs ! the sigh earth's deep foundation shakeF. 
 If in his love so terrible, what then 
 His wrath inflam'd ? his tenderness on fire ? 
 liike softsmoothe oil, ouiblazing other fires? 
 Can pray'r, can praise avert it? — Thou, my all
 
 84 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 My theme ! my inspiration ! and my crown ! 
 My strenth in age I my rise in low estate ! 
 My soul's ambition, pleasure, wealth 1 my world ! 
 My light in darkness I and my life in death I 
 My boast thro' time ! bliss thro' eternity J 
 Eternity, too short to speak thy praise, 
 Or fathom tliy profound of love to man I 
 To man of men the meanest, ev'n to me ; 
 My sacrifice ! my God ! — what things are these ! 
 What then art Thou ? By what name shall I call 
 thee ? 
 Knew I the name devout archangels use, 
 Devout archangels should the name enjoy. 
 By me unrivall'd ; thousands more sublime, 
 None half so dear as that which tho'unspoke, 
 Still glows at heart. O how omnipotence 
 Is lost in love ! thou great Phila ivthropist ! 
 Father of angels ! but the friend of man I 
 Like Jacob, fondest of the younger born ! 
 Thou who didst save him, snatch the smoaking brand 
 From out the flames, and quench it in thy blood ! 
 How art thou pleas'd by bounty to distress I 
 To make us groan beneath onr gratitude, 
 Too big for birth ! to favour and confound ; 
 To challenge, and to distance all return I 
 Of lavish love stupendous heights to soar, 
 And leave praise panting in the distant vale ! 
 Thy right too great defrauds thee of thy due, 
 And sacrilegious our sublimest song.. 
 But since the naked will obtains thy smile, 
 Beneath this monument of praise unpaid, 
 And future life sympbonious to my strair.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN TBItTMPH. 85 
 
 (That noblest hymn to Heaven !) for ever lie 
 Intomb'd my fear of death ! and ev'ry fear, 
 The dread of ev'ry evil but thy frown. 
 
 AVhom see I yonder so demurely smile? 
 Laughter a labour, and might break their rest : 
 Ye Q.uietists, in homage to the skies I 
 Serene ! of soft address I who mildly make 
 An unobtrusive tender of yonr hearts. 
 Abhorring violencp.' who halt indeed ; 
 But, for the blessing, wrestle not with Heav'n I 
 Think you my song too turbulent ? too warm I 
 Are passions, then, the pagans of the soul ? 
 Reason alone baptiz'd ! alone ordained 
 To touch things sacred ? Oh for warmer still ! 
 Guilt chills ray zeal, and age benumbs my powers ; . 
 Oh for an humbler heart and prouder song I 
 Thou, my much-injur'd theme ! with that soft eye 
 AVhich melted o'er doora'd Salem, deign to look 
 Compassion to the coldness of my breast, 
 And pardon to the winter in my strain. 
 
 Oh ye cold-hearted, frozen formalists! 
 On such a theme 'tis impious to be calm ; 
 Passion ig reason, transport temper, here 
 Shall Heav'n, which gave us ardour, and has shewn 
 Her own for man so strongly, not disdain 
 "What smooth emollients in theology, 
 Recumbent virtue's downy doctors preach, 
 That prose of piety, a lukewarm praise ? 
 Rise odours sweet from incense uninllam'd ? 
 Devotion, when lukewarm, is undevout? 
 But when it glows, its heal is struck to heav'n; 
 To human hearts her golden harp are strung; 
 High Heav'n'i orcheetrb chants Amen to man.
 
 86 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Hear I, or dream I hear, their distant strain. 
 Sweet to the soul and tasting strong of heav'n, 
 Soft wafted on celestial Pity's plume, 
 Thro' the vast spaces of the universe, 
 To cheer me in this melancholy gloom? 
 Oh when will death (now stingiess) like a friend, 
 Admit me of their choir ? Oh when will death 
 This mould'ring, old partition-wall, throw down ? 
 Give beings, one in nature, one abode ? 
 Oh death divine ! that giv'st us to the skies ! 
 Great future ! glorious patron of the past 
 And prese.'itj when shall I thy shrine adore? 
 From Nature's continent iraraensely wide. 
 Immensely blest, this little isle of life, 
 This dark incarcerating colony 
 Divides us. Happy day that breaks our chain ! 
 That manumits ; that calls from exile home ; 
 That leads to Nature's great metropolis, 
 And re-adinitsus, thro' the guai'dian hand 
 Of elder brothers, to our Father's throne, 
 "Who hears our advocate, and thro' his wounds 
 Beholding man, allows that tender name. 
 'Tis this makes Christian triumph a command ; 
 'Tis this makes joy a duty to the wise. 
 'Tis impious in a good man to be sad. 
 
 Seest thou, Lorenzo, where hangs all our hope? 
 Touch'd by the cross we live, or more than die ; 
 That touch which touch'd not angels: more divine 
 Than that which touch'd confusion into form, 
 And darkness into glory: partial touch ! 
 Ineffably pre-eminent regard ! 
 ^aored to man, and sov'reign thro' the wkole
 
 THE CHRISTIAN TRICMIH. (i 7 
 
 Long golden chain of miracles which hangs 
 From heavn through all duration, and supports 
 In one illustrious and amazing plan, 
 Thy welfare, Nature, and thy gods renown ; 
 That touch, which charm celestial, heals the soul 
 DiseasM, drives pain from guilt, lights life in death, 
 Turns earth to heav'n, to heavenly thrones transforms 
 The ghastly ruins of the moul'ring tomb. 
 
 Dost ask me when ? When he who dyVl returns ; 
 Returns, how chang'd ! where then the man of woe ? 
 In glory's terrors all the Godhead burns, 
 And all his courts exhausted by the tide 
 Of deities triumphant in his train, 
 Leave a stupendous solitude in heav'n ; 
 Replenish'd soon, replenished with increase 
 Of pomp and multitude; a radiant band 
 Of angels new, of angels from the tomb. 
 
 Is this by fancy thrown remote? and rise 
 Bark doubts between the promise andeveut 
 I send thee not to volumes for thy cure ; 
 Read nature ; Nature is a friend to truth ; 
 Nature is Christian ; preaches to mankind, 
 And bids dead matter aid us in our creed. 
 ,Hast thou ne'er seen the comets flaming flight 
 Th' illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds 
 On gazing nations from his fiery train, 
 Of length enormous, takes his ample round 
 Thro' depths of ether ; coasts nnnumber'd worKls, 
 Of more than solar glory ; doubles wide 
 Heav'ns mighty cape ; and then re-visits earth, 
 From the long travel of a thousand years. 
 Thus, at the deslin'd period, shall return
 
 oS THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 He, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze ; 
 And with hira, all our triumph o'er the tomb. 
 
 Nature is dumb on this important point, 
 Or hope precarious in low whisper breathes : 
 "Faith speaks aloud, di.'^tinct ; ev'n adders hear, 
 But turn, and dart into the dark again. 
 Faith builds a bridge across the gulph of death, 
 To break the shock blind Nature cannot shun, 
 And lands Thought smoothly on the farther shore. 
 Death's terror is the mountain Faith removes, 
 That mountain-barrier between man and peace. 
 'Tis Faith disarms Destruction, and absolves. 
 From ev'ry clamorous charge the guiltless tomb. 
 
 Why disbelieve ? Lorenzo ! — '' Reason bids, 
 '' All sacx'ed Reason.'' — Hold her sacred still ; 
 Nor shalt thou want a rival in thy llame ; 
 All-sacred Reason! gource and soul of all 
 Demanding praise on earth, or earth above ! 
 My heart is thine: deep in its inmost folds 
 Live thou with life ; live dearer of the two. 
 Wear I the blessed cross, by Fortune stamp'd 
 On passive Nature before Thought was born? 
 3ty birth's blind Mgot ! fir'd with local zeal ! 
 No ; Reason rebaptiz'd me when adult; 
 Weigh'd true and false in her impartial scale : 
 My heart became the convert of my head. 
 And made that choice which once was but my fate. 
 " On argument alone my faith is built :'* 
 Reason pursu'd is faith ; and unpursu'd, 
 Where proof invites, 'tis reason then no more ; 
 And such our proof, that, or our faith is right, 
 Or reason lies, and Heav'n design'd it Avrong. 
 Absolve we this ? what then is blasphemy ?
 
 THE CKRISTIAN TRJUMPn. 89 
 
 Fend as we are, and justly, fond of faith, 
 Reason, we grant, demands our first regard; 
 Tlie mother honourM, as the daughter dear. 
 Reason the root, fair Faith is but the flow'r ; 
 The fading fiow'r shall die, but Reason lives 
 Immortal, as her father in the skies. 
 "When faith is virtue, reason makes it so. 
 ''tYrong not the Christian : think not reason yours ; 
 'Tis reason our great Master holds so dear ; 
 'Tis reason's injur'd rights his wrath resents ; 
 'Tis reason's voice obey'd, his glories crown ; 
 To gl%'e lost reason life, he pour'd his own. 
 Beiipve, and shew the reason of a man ; 
 Believe, and taste the pleasure of a God; 
 Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb. 
 Thro' reason's wounds alone thy faith can die ; 
 "Which dying, ten-fold terror gives to death, 
 And dips in venom his twice-mortal stkig. 
 
 Learn hence what honours, what loud paeans dae^ 
 To those who push our antidote aside ; 
 Those boasted friends to reason and to man, 
 "Whqge fatal love stabs every joy, and leaves 
 Death's terror heighten'd gnawing at his heart, 
 These pompous sons of reason idoliz'd, 
 AndviliR'd at once ; of reason dead, 
 Then deifi'd as monarchs were of old; 
 What conduct plants proud laurels on their brow ? 
 "While love of truth thro' all their c.imp resounds, 
 They draw pride's curtain o'er the noon-tide ray, 
 Spike up their inch of reason on the point 
 Of philosophic wit, call'd Argument, 
 
 E2
 
 00 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 And then exulting in their taper, oy, 
 
 *' Behold the sun ;" and; Indian-like, adore. 
 
 Talk they of morals ? O thou bleeding Love 1 
 Thou maker of new morals to mankind I 
 The grand morality is love of Thee. 
 As wife as Socrates, if such they were, 
 (Nor will the-y bate of that subiime renown) 
 As wise as Socrates, might justly stand 
 The definition of a modern fool. 
 
 A Christian is the highest style of man. 
 And is there who the blessed cross wipes off, 
 As a foul blot, from his dishonoured brow? 
 If angels tremble, 'tis at such a sight : 
 The wretch they quit, desponding of their charge, 
 More struck with grief or wonder who can tell ? 
 
 Ye sold to sense I ye citizens of earth! 
 (For such alone the Christian banner fly) 
 Know ye how wise your choice, how great your gain 
 Behold the picture of earth's happiest man : 
 '• He calls his wish, it comes ; he sends it back, 
 *' And says he call'd another ; that arrives, 
 •• Meets the same welcome ; yet he still calls on ; 
 *'Till one calls him who varies not his call, 
 *' But ho!ds him fast, in chains of darkness bound, 
 " Till nature dies, and judgment sets him free .- 
 '* A freedom far less welcome than his chain.'* 
 
 But grant man happy; grant him happy long; 
 Add to life's highest prize her latest hour; 
 That hour, so late, is nimble in approach, 
 That, like a post, comes on in fall career. 
 How swift the shuttle flies that weaves thy shroud ! 
 Where is the fable of thy former years ?
 
 THE CHKTaTIAN TRICirrn. 9i 
 
 i brown down the gulf of time ; as far from thee 
 As they had ne'er been thrne ; the day in hand, 
 Like a bird strugirling to get loose, is going ; 
 Scarce now possess'd : so suddenly 'tis gone ; 
 And each swift motnent fled, is death advancM 
 I3y strides as gwift. Eternity is all; 
 And whose eternity ? who triumphs there? 
 Bathing for ever in the font of bliss? 
 For ever basking in the Deity •' 
 Lorenzo, who ? — thy conscience shall reply. 
 
 O give it leave to S{jeak ; 'twill speak ere long, 
 Thy leave nnask'd : Lorenzo, hear it now, 
 While useful its advice, its accent mild. 
 By the great edict, the divine decree, 
 'iruth is deposited with man's last hour; 
 An honest hour, and faithful to her trust ; 
 Truth, eUk^st daughter of the Deity ! 
 Truth of his council when he made the worlds I 
 Nor less when he shall judge the worlds he made ; 
 Tho' silent long, and sleeping ne'er so sound, 
 SmotherM with errorsi, and oppress'd with toys, 
 That heaven commission'd hour no sooner calls, 
 But from her cavern in the soul's abyss, 
 Like him they fable under JEtna v.helin'd, 
 Tliegoddest bursts in thunder and in flame. 
 Loudly convinces, and severely pains. 
 Dark dajinons I discharge, and hydra stings ; 
 The keen vibration of bright truth — is jiell ; 
 Just definition I tho' by schools untaught. 
 Ye deaf to truth, peruse this parson'd page, 
 And trust for once a piophet and a priest : 
 *' Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die."
 
 TRE 
 
 COMPLAINT. 
 
 vwvw 
 
 NIGHT V. 
 
 vwvw 
 
 THE RELAPSE. 
 
 fXSCBIBF.O TO THE RIGHT nOXOURABLE THE 
 EARL OF LICHFIELD. 
 
 Lorenzo » to recriminate is just. 
 Fondness for fame is avarice of air. 
 I grant the man is vain who writes for praise. 
 Praise no man e'er deservM, who soiight no more. 
 
 As just thy second charge. I grant the muse 
 Has often blush'd at her degen'rate sons, 
 Retain'd by sense to plead her filthy cause, 
 To raise the low, to magnify the mean, 
 And subtilize, the gross into refin'd ; 
 As if to magic numbers pow'rful charm 
 'Tvvas given to make a civet of tiieir song 
 Obscene and sweeten ordure to perfume. 
 Wit, a true Pagan, deifies the brute, 
 And lifts our swaine-enjoyments from the mire. 
 
 The fact notorious, nor obscure the cause. 
 "We wear the chains of pleasure and of pride : 
 These share the man, and these distract him too; 
 Draw different ways, and clash in their commandf?. 
 Pride, like an eagle, builds cmong the stars;
 
 THE RELAPSE. 93 
 
 But Pleasure, lark-like, nests upon the ground. 
 Joys shar'tl by brute creation, Pride resents ; 
 Pleasure embraces ; man Avould both enjoy, 
 And both at once : a point how hard to gain I 
 But what can't Wit, when stung by strong desire? 
 
 "Wit dares attempt this arduous enterprise. 
 Since joys of sense can't ri*e to Reason's taste, 
 In subtle Sophistry's laborious forge, 
 Wit hammers out a reason new. that stoops 
 To sordid scenes, and meets thorn with applause. 
 Wit calls the Graces the chaste zone to loose ; 
 Nor less than a plump god to fill the bowl : 
 A thousand phantoms, and a thousand spells, 
 A thousand opiates «^catters to delude, 
 To fascinate, inebriate, lay asleep, 
 And the fool'd mind delightfully confound. 
 Thus that which shuck'd the judgment shocks no 
 
 more : 
 That which gave Pride offence no more offends. 
 Pleasure and Pride, by nature mortal foes. 
 At war eternal which in man shall reign, 
 By Wit's address patch up a fatal peace, 
 And hand-in-hand lead on the rank debauch, 
 From rank, rcfin'd to delicate and gay. 
 Art, cursed Art! wipes off th' indebted blush 
 Fnim Nature's cheek, and bronzes ev'ry shame. 
 Man smiles in Ruin, glories in his guilt, 
 And Infamy stands candidate for praise. 
 All writ by man in favour of the soul. 
 These sensual ethics far, in bulk, tranfcend, 
 Theflow'rs of eloquence profusely pour'd 
 O'er spotted Vice, fill half the lettered worl^.
 
 94 ^ 3I1E COMTLAiyj. 
 
 Can pow'rs of genius ex3rclse their page, 
 
 And consecrate enormities with song ? 
 
 But let not these inexpiable strains 
 
 Condemn the muse that knows her dignity, 
 
 Nor meanly stops at lime, but holds the world 
 
 As 'tis, in Nature's ample field, a point, 
 
 A point in her esteem ; from whence to start, 
 
 And run the round of universal space. 
 
 To visit being universal there, 
 
 And being's source, that utmost flight of mind : 
 
 Yet spite of this so vast circumference, 
 
 Well knows but what is moral, nought is great. 
 
 Sing Syrens only ? do not angels sing? 
 
 There is in Poesy a decent pride, 
 
 AVhich well becomes her ^vhen she speaks to Piose, 
 
 Her younger sister haply not more wise. 
 
 Think'st thou, Lorenzo, to find pastimes here? 
 No guilty passion blown into a /lame, 
 No foible Hatter'd, dignity disgrao'd, 
 No fairy field of fiction, all on flower, 
 No rainbow colours here, or silken tale ; 
 But solemn counsels, images of awe, 
 Truths which Eternity lets full on man 
 With double weight, thro' these revolving spheres, 
 This death-deep silence, and Incumbent shade ; 
 Thoughts such as shall re-visit your last hour, 
 Visit uncaird, and live when life expires; 
 And thy dark pencil, Midnight! darker still 
 In melancholy dipp'd, embrowns the whole. 
 
 Yet this, even this, my laughter-loving friends, 
 Lorenzo ! and thy brothers of the smile \ 
 If what imports you most can most engage,
 
 THE RTCLAPSE. s f)5 
 
 Shall ?tea! your ear and chain you to my song. 
 Or if you fail me, know the wise shall taste 
 The truths I sing; the truths I sing shall feel, 
 And, feeling, give a?sent ; and their absent 
 Is ample recompense ; is more than praise. 
 But chiefly thine, O Litchfield ! nor mistake I 
 Think not unintroduc'd I force my \\ay; 
 Narcissa, not unknown, not unallyM 
 By virtue or by blood, illustrious Youth I 
 To thee from blooming amaranthine bowVs, 
 Where all the language Harmony, descends 
 Uncall'd, and asks admitiance for the muse: 
 A muse that will not pain thee with thy praise : 
 Thy praise she drops, by nobler still inspir'd. 
 
 O thou, blest Spirit I whether the supreme, 
 Great antemundane Fatiier I in whose breast 
 Embryo creation, unborn being, dwelt, 
 And all its various revolutions roll'd 
 Present, tho' future, prior to themselves ; 
 Whose breath can blow it into nought again. 
 Or from his throne some delegated pow'r 
 Who, studious of our peace, dost turn the thought 
 From vain and vile, to solid and sublime ! 
 Unseen thou lead'st me to delicious draughts 
 Of inspiration, from a purer stream, 
 And fuller of the God than that which burst 
 From fam'd Castalia; nor is yet allay'd 
 My sacred thirst, tho' long my soul has rang'd 
 Thro' pleasing paths of moral and divine, 
 By these sustain'd and lighted by the stars. 
 
 By them best lighted are the paths of thought ; 
 >'ights are their davs, their most illurain'd hours !
 
 96 THECOMPLAIAT- 
 
 By (lay the soul overborne by life's career, 
 
 StunnM by the din, ami giddy with the glare. 
 
 Keels far from reason, jostled by the throng. 
 
 By day the soul is passive, all her thoughts 
 
 Impos'd, precarious, broken, ere mature. 
 
 By night, from objects free, from passion cool, 
 
 Thoughts uncontrol'd, and uniinpress'd the births 
 
 Of pure Election, arbitrary range, 
 
 Not to the limits of one world confiii'd. 
 
 But from etiiereal travels light on earth, 
 
 As voyagers drop anchor for repose. 
 
 Let Indians, and the gay, like Indians, found 
 Of feathered fopperies, the sun adore; 
 Darkness has more divinity for nie ; 
 It strikes thought inward, it drives back the soul 
 To settle, on herself, our point supreme I 
 There lies our theatre; there sits our judge. 
 Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene; 
 'Tis the kind hand of Providence stretch'd out 
 'Twixt man and vanity ; 'tis Reason's reign, 
 And virtue's too; these tutelary shades 
 Are raan's asylum from the tainted throng. 
 Night is the good man's friend, and guardian too, 
 It no less rescues virtue than inspires. 
 
 Virtue, for ever frail as fair, below, 
 Her tender nature suffers in the crow'd, 
 Nor toucheson the world without a stain. 
 The world's infectious ; few bring back at eve, 
 Immaculate, the manners of the morn. 
 Something we thought is blotted j we resolv'd, 
 Is shaken; *ve renouncM, returns again. 
 Each salutation may slide in a sin 
 Untlioughl before, or fix a former flaw.
 
 THE RELAPSE. 9 I 
 
 Nor is it strange; iiglit, motion, concourse, noise, 
 All «catter us abroad. Thought outward-bound, 
 Neglectful of our home-affairs, dies off 
 In fume and dissipation, quits her charge, 
 And leaves the breast unguarded to the foe. 
 
 Preseni example gets within our guard, 
 And acts " ith double force, by few repeli'd. 
 Ambition fires ambition ; love of gain 
 Strikes, like a pestilence ; from breast to breast : 
 Riot, pride, perfidy, blue vapours breathe, 
 And itihumanity is caught from man, 
 From smiling man ! a slight a single glance. 
 And shot at random, often has brought home 
 A sudden fever to the throbbing heart 
 Of envy, rancour, or impure desire. 
 We see, we hear, with peril ; safety dwells 
 Remote from multitude. The world's a school 
 Of wrong, and what proficients swarm around ! 
 We must or imitate or disapprove ; 
 Must list as their accomplices or foes ; 
 That stains our innocence, lliis wounds our peace. 
 From Nature's birth, hence, wisdom has been srait 
 With sweet recess, aud languish'd for the shade. 
 
 This sacred shade and solitude what is it? 
 'Tis the felt presence of the Deity. 
 Few are the faults we flatter when alone. 
 Vice sinks in her allurements, is ungilt, 
 And looks, like other objects, black by night. 
 By night an atheist half believes a God. 
 
 Night is fair virtue's immemorial friend. 
 The conscious moon, thro' ev'ry distant age, 
 Has held a lamp to \Yisdom, and let fall,
 
 98 THE COMFLAIKT. 
 
 On contemplation's eye her purging ray. 
 
 The fam'tl Athenian, he who woo'd from heaven 
 
 Philosophy the fair, to dwell with men, 
 
 And from their manner.?, not inflame their pridC) 
 
 While o'er his head as fearful to molest 
 
 His lab'ring mind, the stars in silence slide, 
 
 And seem all gazing on their future guest, 
 
 See hiin soliciting his ardent suit 
 
 In private audience ; all the live-long night, 
 
 Rigid in thought, and motionless he stands. 
 
 Nor quits his theme or posture till the sun 
 
 (Rude drunkard ! rising rosy from the main) 
 
 Disturbs his nobler intellectual beam. 
 
 And gives him to the tumult of the world. 
 
 Hail, precious moments » stol'n from the black waste 
 
 Ofmurder'd time! auspicious Midnight! hail! 
 
 The world excluded ev'ry passion hush*tl, 
 
 And open'd a calm intercourse with Heav'n, 
 
 Here the soul sits in council, ponders past, 
 
 Predestines future actions ; sees, not feels. 
 
 Tumultuous life, and reasons with the storm ; 
 
 All her lyes answers and thinks down her charms. 
 
 What awful joy ! what mental liberty I 
 I am not pent in darkness ; rather say 
 (If not too bold) in darkness I'm embower'd. 
 Delightful gloom ! the clust'ring thoughts around 
 Spontaneous rise, and blossom in the shade. 
 But droop by day, and sicken in the sun. 
 Thought borrows light elsewhere; from that firgt fire 
 Fountain of animation I w-hence descends 
 Urania, my celestial guest! who deigns 
 Nightly to visit me, so mean ; and no\r.
 
 THE &BLAPSE. 90 
 
 Conscious how neeJful discipline toman, 
 From pleasing dalliance with the cliarms of night 
 My wand'ring thought recalls, to what excites 
 Far ether beat of heart, Narcissa's tomb ! 
 
 Or is it feeble Nature calls me back, 
 And breaks my spirit into grief again ? 
 Ib it a Stygian vapour in my blood ? 
 A cold slow puddle creeping thro' my vins ? 
 Or is it thus with all men ? — Thus with all. 
 "What are we ? how unequal ! now we soar, 
 And now we sink. To be the same transcends 
 Our present prowess. Dearly pays the soul 
 For lodging ill ; too dearly rents her clay. 
 Reason, a baffled counsellor! but adds 
 The blush of weakness to the bane of woe. 
 The noblest spirit fighting her hard fate 
 In this damp, dusky region, charg'd with storms, 
 But feebly flutters, yet untaught to fly j 
 Or, flying, short her flight, and sure Iier fall : 
 Our utmost strength, when down, to rise again, 
 Aad not to yield, tho' beaten, all our praise. 
 
 *Tis vain to seek in men for more than man. 
 Tho' proud in promise, big in previous thought, 
 Experience damps our triumjih. I, who late 
 Emerging from the shadows of the gravej 
 "Where grief detain'd me prisoner, mounting high, 
 Threw wide the gates of everlasting day. 
 And call'd mankind to glory, shook off pain, 
 3Iortality shook off, in ether pure, 
 And struck the stars, now feel my spirits fail ; 
 They drop me from the zenith ; down I rush, 
 I ike him whom fable flcdg'd with waxen wings,
 
 loo THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 In sorrow tlrownM — -but not in sorrow lost. 
 
 Hosv wretched is the man who never mourn'd! 
 
 I dive for precious pearl in sorrow's stream : ' 
 
 Not so the thoughtless man that only grieves, 
 
 Takes all the torment, and rejects the gain, 
 
 (Inestimable gain) and gives Heav'n leave 
 
 To make him but more wretched, not more wise. 
 
 If wisdom is our lesson (and what else 
 Ennobles man ? what else have angels learn'd ?) 
 Grief I more proficients in tliy school are made, 
 Than genius or proud learning e'er could boast. 
 Voracious learning often over-fed, 
 Digests not into sense her motley meal. 
 This bookcase, with dark booty almost burst, 
 This forager on others wisdom, leaves 
 Her native farm, her reason, quite uutili'd. 
 With mixt manure she surfeits the rank soil, 
 Dung'd, but not dress'd, and rich to beggary : 
 A pomp untameable of weeds prevails : 
 Her servant's wealth incamberM Wisdom mourns. 
 
 And what says Genius ? Let the dull be wise. 
 Genius ; too hard for right, can prove it wrong, 
 And loves to boast, where blush men less inspir'd. 
 It pleads exemption from the laws of sense, 
 Considers reason as a leveller, 
 And scorns to share a blessing with the crowd. 
 That wise it could be, thinks an ample claim 
 To glory, and to pleasure gives the rest. 
 Crassus but sleeps, Ardelio is undone. 
 Wisdom less shudders at a fool than wit. 
 
 But wisdom smiles, when humbled mortals weep. 
 When sorrow wounds the breast, as ploughs the glebe,
 
 THE RELArSE. JOl 
 
 And hearts obdurate feel her soft'ning show'r : 
 
 Her seed celestial, then, glad wisdom sows; 
 
 Her golden hardest triumphs in the soil. 
 
 If so, Narci?sa, welcome my relapse ; 
 
 1*11 raise a tax on my calamity, 
 
 And reap rich compensation from my pain. 
 
 I'll range the plenteous intellectual field, 
 
 And gather ev'ry thought of sovereign powV 
 
 To chase the moral maladies of man ; 
 
 Thoughts which may bear transplanting to the skies, 
 
 Tho' natives of this coarse penurious soil; 
 
 Nor wholly whither there' were seraphs sing, 
 
 Refin'd, exalted, not annuil'd, in heav'n : 
 
 Reason, the sun, that gives them birth, the same 
 
 In either clime, tho' more illustrious there. 
 
 These choicely culi'd, and elegantly rang'd 
 
 Shall form a garland for Narclssa's tomb, 
 
 And peradventure, of no fading flow'rs. 
 
 Say, on what themes shall puzzled choice descend ? 
 " Th' importance of contemplating the tomb j 
 *• Why men decline it; suicide's foul birth; 
 *' The various kinds of grief; the faults of age ; 
 ••And death's dread character — invite my song.'^ 
 
 And, first, th' importance of our end surveyed. 
 Friends counsel quick dismission of our grief. 
 Mistaken kindness I our hearts heal too soon. 
 Are they more kind than He who struck the blow" ? 
 Who bid it do his errand in our hearts, 
 And banish peace, till nobler guests arrive, 
 And bring it back a true and endless peace? 
 Calamities are friends ; as glaring day 
 Of these unnumber'd lustres robs our sight,
 
 102 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Prosperity puts out unnumber'd thoughts ^ 
 
 Of import high, and light divine to man, ^ 
 
 The man how bless'd, who, sick of gaudy scenes, 
 (Scenes apt to trust between us and ourselves !) 
 Is led by choice to take his fav'rite walk 
 Beneath Death's gloomy, silent, cypress shades, 
 Unpierc'd by Vanity's fantastic ray ; 
 To read his monuments, to weigh his dust, 
 "Visit his vaults, and dwell among thetombs^l 
 Lorenzo, read with me Narcissa's stone; 
 (Narcissa was thy fav'rite) let us read 
 Her moral stone ; few doctors preach so well ', 
 Few orators so tenderly can touch 
 The feeling heart. "What pathos in the date ! 
 Apt w^ords can strike ; and yet in them we see 
 Faint images of what we here enjoy. 
 Tv'hat cause have we to build on length of life ? 
 Temptations seize when fear is laid asleep, 
 And ill foreboded is our strongest guard. 
 
 See from her tomb, as from an humble shrine, 
 Truth, radiant goddess! sallies on my soul, 
 And puts Delusion's dusky train to Sight: 
 Dispels the mist cur sultry passions raise 
 From object! low% terrestial, and obscene, 
 And shows the real estimate of things, 
 Which no man, unafflicted, ever saw ; 
 Pulls off the veil from Virtue's rising charms ; 
 Detects temptation in a thousand lies. 
 Truth bids me look on men as autumn leaves, 
 And all they bleeJ for as the summer',^ dust 
 Driv'n by the whirlwind : lighted by her beams, 
 I widen my horizon, gain new pow'rs.
 
 THE RELAPSE. 103 
 
 See things Invisible, feel things remote, 
 Am present with futurities; think nought 
 To man so foreign as the joys possessM ; 
 !Noiight so much his as those beyond the grave. 
 
 Xo folly keeps its colour in her sight : 
 Pale worldly wibdom lose? all her charm? ; 
 In pompous promise from her schemes profound, 
 If future fate she plans, 'tis all in leaves. 
 Like Sibyl! unsubstantial fleeting bliss ! 
 At the first blast it vanishes in air. 
 Not so celestial : Would'st thou know, Lorenzo, 
 How differ worldly wisdom and divine ? 
 Just as the waning and the waxing moon : 
 More empty worldly wisdom ev'ry day ; 
 And ev'ry day more fair her rival shines. 
 \A hen later, there's less time to play the fool. 
 Soon our whole term for wisdom is expir'd, 
 (Thou know'i^t she calls no council in the grave) 
 And everlasting fool is writ in fire. 
 Or real wisdom wafts us to the skies. 
 
 As worldly schemes reseuible Sibyl's leaves, 
 The good man's days to Sibyl's books compare, 
 (In ancient story read, thou know'st the tale) 
 In price still rising as in number less, 
 Inestimable quite his final hour. 
 For that who thrones can offer, offer thrones ; 
 Insolvent worlds the purchase cannot pay. 
 *' Oh let me die his death !" all naturL- cries. 
 '* Then live his life." — All nature falters there ; 
 Our great physician daily to consult, 
 To commune^Aith the grave, our only cure. 
 
 "What grave prescribes the begt ? — A friend's ' 
 and yet
 
 ]04 THE COMPLAIKT. 
 
 From a friend's grave how soon we disengage 1 
 
 Ev'n to the dearest, as his marble, cold. 
 
 Why are friends ravish'd from us ? 'Tis to bind, 
 
 By soft Affection's ties on human hearts, 
 
 The thought of death, which reason, too supine, 
 
 Or misemployed so rarely fastens there. 
 
 Nor reason, nor affection, no, nor both 
 
 Combin'd, can break the witchcrafts of the world. 
 
 Behold th' inexorable hour at hand ! 
 
 Behold th* inexorable hoar forgot ! 
 
 And to forget it the chief aim of life, 
 
 Tho' well to ponder it, is life's chief end. 
 
 Is death, that ever threat'ning ne'er remote, 
 That all-important, and that only sure, 
 (Come when he will) an unexpected guest? 
 Nay, tho' invited by the loudest calls 
 Of blind imprudence, unexpected still, 
 Tho' num'rous messengers are sent before, 
 To warn his great arrival. What the cause, 
 The won'rous cause, of this mysterious ill? 
 All heav'n looks down, astonish'd at the sight. 
 
 Is it that Life has sown her joys so thick 
 We can't trust in a single care between ? 
 Is it that Life has such a swarm of cares. 
 The thought of death can't enter for the throng? 
 Is it that time steals on with downy feet, 
 Nor wakes indulgence from her godden dream ? 
 To-day is so like yesterday it cheats ; 
 We take the lying sister for the same. 
 Life glides away, Lorenzo, like a brook, 
 For ever changing, unperceir'd the change. 
 In th» same brook none ever bath'd him twice > 
 To the sarae life none over twice awoke.
 
 XHE RELAPiE. 10. 
 
 V»'e call the brook the same; the same we think 
 Our life, tho' still more rapid in its flow, 
 Nor raark the much irrevocably lapsM, 
 Aful mingleii with the sea. Or shall we Fay 
 (Retaining still the brook to bear us on) 
 Tliat life is like a vessel on the stream ? 
 In life embarkM, we smoothly down the tide 
 Of time descend, but not v. n time intent; 
 AmusM, unconscious of the gliding wave, 
 Till on a sudden we perceive a shock ; 
 We start, awake, look out ; v;hat see we there ; 
 Our brittle bark is burst on Charon's shore. 
 
 Is this the cause death flies all human thought 
 Or is it judgment, by the will struck blind. 
 That domineering mistress of the soul ! 
 Take him so strong by Dalildh the fair ? 
 Or is it fear turns startled reason back 
 From looking down a precipice so steep ? 
 'Tis dreadful, and the dread is wisely plac'd 
 By Nature, conscious of the make of man. 
 A dreadful friend it is, a terrror kind, 
 A flaming sword to guard the tree of life. 
 By that unaw'd, in life's most smiling hour 
 The good man would repine ; would sufier joy.., 
 And burn impatient for hi? promisM skies. 
 The bad, on each punctilious pique of pride. 
 Or gloom of humour, would give rage the rein, 
 Bound o'er the barrier, rush into the dark, 
 And mar the scenes of Providence below. 
 
 What groan was that, Lorenzo? Furies, ri^c, 
 And drown, in your less execrable yell, 
 Britannia's shame, There took her gloomy flight, 
 F
 
 106 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 On wing iaipetuous, a black suJlen snul. 
 Blasted from hell with horrid lust of death. 
 Thy friend, the brave, the gallant Altamont, 
 So call'd, so thought, — and then he fled the field, 
 Less !ja?e the fear ofueiith than fear of life. 
 O Britain I infamous for suicide ! 
 An island, in thy manners, fardisjoin'd 
 From the whole world of nationals beside I 
 In ambient waves plunge thy polluted head, 
 Wash the dire stain, nor shock the continent. 
 
 But thou be shock'd while I detect the cause 
 Of self-assault, cxposse the monster's birth, 
 And bid abhorrence hiss it round the world. 
 Blame not thy clime, nor chide the distant sun ; 
 The sua is innocent, thy clime absolv'd ; 
 Immoral climes kind Nature never made. 
 The cause I sing in Eden might prevail, 
 And proves it is thy folly, not thy fate. 
 The soul of man (let man in homage bow 
 Who names his soul) a native of the skies I 
 High-born and free, her freedom should maintaia, 
 Unsold, unmortgag'd for earth's little bribes. 
 Th' illustrious stranger in this foreign land, 
 Like strangers jealous of her dignity, 
 Studious of home, and ardent to return, 
 Of earth suspicious, earths inchanted cup 
 With cool reserve light touching, should indulge 
 On immortality her godlike taste ; 
 There take large draughts ; make her chief banqut 
 there : 
 
 But some reject this sustenance divine j 
 To beggarly vile appetites descend,
 
 THE RELiPsi:. 107 
 
 Ask alms of earth far guest? that came from heav'xi ; 
 Sink into slaves, and sel! for present hire 
 Their rich reversion and (what shares its fate) 
 Their native freedom to the prince who s»vays 
 This neither world ; and when his payments fail, 
 When his foul basket gorges them no more, 
 Or their pal I'd palates loathe the basket full, 
 Are instantly, with wild demoniac rage 
 For breaking all the chains of Providence, 
 And bursting their confinement, thro' fast ban'd 
 By laws divine and human ; guarded strong 
 AVith horrors doubled to defend the pass, 
 The blackest, Nature, or dire guilt can raisft, 
 And moatcJ round with fathomless destruction, 
 Sure to receive, and whelm them in their fall. 
 
 Such, Bi itons, is the cause, to you unknown, 
 Or, worse, o'erlook'd, o'erlook'd hy magistrate*; 
 Thus criminals themselves. I grant the deed 
 Is madness, but the madness of the heart. 
 And what is that? Our utmost bound of gu"'. 
 A sensual unreflecting lii'e is big 
 With monstrous births and suicide, to crown 
 The black infernal brood. The bold to break 
 lleav'n'g law supreme, and desperately rush 
 Thro' sacred Nature's murder on their own, 
 Because they never think of death, they die, 
 'Tis equally man's duty, glory, gain, 
 At once to shun and meditate his end. 
 When by the bed of ianguisbraent we sit, 
 (The seat of wisdum \ if our choice, not fate) 
 Or o'er our dying friendt; in anguish hang. 
 Wipe the cold dew or stay the sinking head,
 
 108 THB CbMPLAlNt. 
 
 Number their moments, and in ev'ry clock 
 
 Start at the voice of an eternity ; 
 
 See the dim lamp of life just feebly lift 
 
 An agonizing beam at us to gaze, 
 
 Then sink again, and quiver into death, 
 
 That most pathetic herald of our own ; 
 
 How read we such sad scenes ? As sent to man 
 
 In perfect vengeance? No, in pity sent, 
 
 To melt him down, like wax, and then impress, 
 
 Indelible, death's image on his heart, 
 
 Bleeding for others, trembling for himself. 
 
 We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile. 
 
 The mind turns fool before the cheek is dry. 
 
 Our quick returning folly cancels all, 
 
 As the tide rushing rases what is writ 
 
 In yielding sands, and smooths the letter'd shore. 
 
 Lorenzo, hast thou ever weigh'd a sigh ? 
 Or study'd the philosophy of tears ? 
 (A science yet unlectur'd in our schools) 
 Hast thou descended deep into the breast 
 And seen their source? if not, descend with me, 
 And trace these briny rivMets to their springs. 
 
 Our fun'ral tears, from diff'rent causes rise : 
 As if from separate cisterns in the soul, 
 Ofvarious kinds they flow. From tender hearts, 
 By soft contagion call'd, some burst at once, 
 And stream obsequies to the leading eye : 
 Some ask more time, by curious art distill'd, 
 Some hearts, in secret hard, unapt to melt. 
 Struck by the magic of the public eye, 
 Like Moses' smitten rock, gush out amain ; 
 Some weep to share the fame of the deceas'd
 
 IHE RELAPSE- ► 109 
 
 So high in merit, and to them so dear : 
 They dwell on praises which they think they share, 
 And thus without a blush, commend themselves, 
 fiome mourn in proof that something they couhl love. 
 They weep not to relieve their grief, but shew. 
 Some weep in perfect justice to the dead. 
 As conscious all their love is in arrear. 
 Some mischievously weep, not unappriz'd, 
 Tears sometimes aid the conquest of an eye. 
 "With what address the soft Ephesians draw 
 Their sable net-work o'er entangled hearts '. 
 As seen thro' crystal, how their roses glow, 
 While liquid pearl runs trickling down their cheek ! 
 Of her*s not prouder, Egypt's wanton queen, 
 Carousing gems, herself dissolved in love. 
 Some weep at death, abstracted from the dead. 
 And celebrate, like Charles, their own decease. 
 Ey kind construction some are deem'd to weep, 
 Because a decent veil conceals their joy. 
 
 Some weep in earnest, and yet weep in vain I 
 As deep in indiscretion as in woe. 
 Pas«ion, blind passion ! impotently pours 
 Tears that deserve more tears, while Reason sleep?, 
 Or gazes, like an idiot, unconcern'd, 
 Nor comprehends the meaning of the storm : 
 Knows not it speaks to her, and her alone. 
 Irrationals all sorrow are beneath, 
 That noble gift ! that privilege of man ! 
 From sorrow's pang the birth of endless joy ; 
 Eut these are barren of that birth divine : 
 They weep impetuous as the summer storm, 
 And full Rs short I the cruel grlcfsoon tamM,
 
 110 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 They make a pastime of the stingless tale ; 
 Far as the deep-resounding knell, they spread 
 The dreadful new?, and hardly feel it more : 
 Xo grain of wisdom pays them for their woe. 
 
 Half round the globe^ the tears purap'd up by deaih 
 Are spent in wat'ring vanities of life ; 
 In making folly flourish still more fair. 
 AYhen the sick soul, her wonted stay withdrawn, 
 Reclines on earth, and sorrows in the dust, 
 Instead of learning there her true support, 
 Tho' there thrown down her true support to learn, 
 "Without Heav'n's aid, impatient to be blest. 
 She crawls to the next shrub or bramble vile, 
 Tho' from the stately cedar's arms she fell ; 
 With stale foresworn embraces clings anew, 
 The stranger weds, and blossoms, as before, 
 In all the fruitless fopperies of life; 
 Presenf s her weed, well fancy'd, at the ball, 
 -And raffles for the death's head on the ring. 
 
 So wept Aurelia, till the destin'd youth 
 Stept in with his receipt for making smiles, 
 And blanching sables into bridal bloom. 
 So wept Lorenzo fair Clarissa's fate. 
 Who gave that angel boy on whom he doats ; 
 And dy'd to give hira, orphan'd in his birth ! 
 Not such, Narcissa, my distress for thee ; 
 I'll make an altar of thy sacred tomb. 
 To sacrifice to wisdom. — What wast thou ? 
 ■^ Young, gay, and fortunate ! Each yields a them?, 
 I'll dwell on each, to shun thought more severe j 
 (Heav'n knows I labour with severer still!) 
 I'll dwell oa each, and. auitc esJiaust thy death.
 
 THE RELAPSE. 1 1 i 
 
 A scul without rfllection, like a pile 
 Without inhabitant, to ruin runs. 
 
 And, fir^t, thy youth : what says it to grey hairs ? 
 XarciFsa, I'm become thy pupil now, — 
 Karly, bright, transient, d)aste, as morning dew , 
 She sparkled, was exhai'd, and went to heav'n. 
 Time on this head has snow'd, yet still 'tis borne 
 Aloft, nor thinks but on another's grave. 
 Cover'd with shame I speak it, age severe 
 Old worn-out vice sets down for virtue lair; 
 With graceless gravity chastising youth, 
 That youth chastis'd surpassing in a fault, 
 Father of all, forgetfulness of death ; 
 As if, like objects pressing on the sight, 
 Death had advanced too near us to be seen ; 
 Or that life's loan time ripeiiM into right, 
 And men might plead prescription from the gra'.p . 
 Deathless, from repetition of reprieve. 
 Deathless ? far from it I such are dead already ; 
 Their hearts are bury'd, and the world their gi t. • . 
 
 Tell me, some God I ray guardian angel, tell 
 What thus infatuates? what enchantment plarjl- 
 The phantom of an age 'twixt us and death, 
 Already at the door ? He knocks i we hear hini 
 And yet we will not hear. What mail defends 
 Our antouch'd hearts, what miracle turns off 
 The pointed thought, \\ hich from a thousand qui\T:.* 
 Is daily darted, and is daily shunn'd ? 
 We stand, as in a battle, throngs on throngs, 
 Around us falling, wounded oft ourselves ; 
 The' bleeding with our wounds, immortal stiJi ; 
 We see Time's furrows on another's brow, 
 And Death intrench'd, preparini^ hia a^sa'llf
 
 112 THK tOMPLA.IK'f. 
 
 How (ew themselves in that just mirror set 1 
 Or, seeing, drasv their inference as strong I 
 There Death is certain ; douhtful here : he must, 
 And soon : we may, within an age, expire. 
 Tho' grey our heads, our thoughts and aims are 
 
 green ! 
 Like damag'd clocks, whose hand and bell dissent ; 
 I'ully sings six, while Nature points at tweh^e. 
 
 Absurd longevity ! More, more, it cries : 
 31ore life, more wealth, more trash of ev'ry kind. 
 And wherefore mad for more, when relish fails? 
 Object and appetite must club for joy : 
 Shall folly labour hard to mend thfe bow, 
 .Baubles, I mean, that strike us from without, 
 While Nature is relaxing ev'ry string ? 
 Ask thought for joy ; grow rich, and hoard within. 
 Think you the soul, when this life's rattles cease, 
 Has nothing of more manly to succeed ? 
 Contract the taste iuimortal ; learn e'en now 
 To relish what alone subsists hereafter. 
 Divine, or none, henceforth, your joys for ever. 
 Of age the glory is, to wish to die : 
 That wish is praise and promise ; it applauds 
 Past life, and promises our future bliss. 
 TVhat weakness see not children in their sires! 
 Orand-clinmcterical absurdities ! 
 Grey-hair'd authority, to faults of youth 
 How shocking! it makes folly thrice a fool ; 
 And our first childhood might our last despise, 
 Peace and esteem is all that age can hope: 
 Nothing but Wisdom gives the first: the last 
 Nothing but the repute of being wise. 
 Folly bars both ; our flge ii quite undone.
 
 What folly can be ranker? I /ike our shadow;;, 
 (} ir wishes lengthen ay our sun tl-icline3. 
 No wish should loiter, thr^n, this side the grave- 
 Our hearts should leave the world hefore the kaell 
 Calls for our carcases to mend the soil, 
 Enough to live in tempests, die in port; 
 Age should fly concourse, cover in retreat 
 Defects of jutlgment, and the wilPs subdue ; 
 "Walk thoughtful on the silent solemn shore 
 Of that vast ocean, it muMt sail so soon. 
 And put good works on board, and wait the win.d 
 That shortly blows us into worlds unknown ; 
 If unconslder'd, too, a dreadful scene ; 
 
 All should be prophets to themselves foresee 
 Their future fate: their future fate foretaste: 
 This art would waste the bitt-^rness of death. 
 The thought ef death alone the fear destroys: 
 A disaffection to that precious thought 
 T*- more than midjiight darkness on the soul, 
 "VViiicli sleeps beneath it on a precipice, 
 Pfifi'd oirby the Arst bla.^t, und lost for ever. 
 
 l>ost a.-k, L:>re;i20, why so warmly prest 
 By repetition Laminer'don thine ear, 
 The thought of death ? That thought is the machine, 
 Tue grand machine, that heaves us from the dust. 
 And rears us into men ! That thought ply'd hom», 
 AYil! soon reduce the gliastiy precipice 
 <.>'ertijangi[»ghrll, will soften the descent. 
 And gently slope our passage to the grave ? 
 How warmly to be wish'd ? what heart of flesh 
 Wo'iJd tiiHe with liexendous ? tlaro extremes ?
 
 114 "THF eOMPLAIAT. 
 
 Yawn o'er the fate of infinite ? what hand, 
 -Beyond the blackest brand of censure bold, 
 'To speak a language too well known to thee,) 
 Would at a moment give its all to chance, 
 And stamp the die for an eternity ? 
 
 Aid me, Narcissa | aid me to keep pace 
 With destiny, and ere her scissors cut 
 My thread of life, to break this tougher thread 
 Of moral death, that ties me to the world. 
 Sting thou ray slunib'ring reason to send forth 
 A thought of observation on the foe ; 
 To sally, and survey the rapid march 
 Of his ten thousand messengers to man : 
 "Who, Jehu-like, behind him turns them at], 
 All accident apart, by Nature sign'd 
 My wrrrant is gone out, tho» dorraent yet ; 
 Perhaps behind one moment lurks my fate. 
 
 Must I then forward only look for death ? 
 Backward I turn mine eye, and find him there^ 
 Man is a self-survivor ev'ry year. 
 Man, like a stream, is in perpetual flow. 
 Death's a destroyer of quotidian prey : 
 My youth, my noon-tide, his ; my yesterday ; 
 The bold invader shares the present hour. 
 jEach moment on the former shuts the grave. 
 While man is growing, life is in decrease, 
 And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb. 
 Our birth is nothing but our death begun, 
 As tapers waste that instant they take fire. 
 
 Shall we then fear, lest that should come to pas; 
 Which comes to pass each moment of our lives ? 
 Tf fear we must, let that death turn ns pale
 
 THE K£LAPSE. 1 \% 
 
 Which murders strenth and ardor; what remains 
 Should rather call on death, than dread his call. 
 Ye partners of my fault, and my decline! 
 Thoughtless of death but when your neighbour^* 
 
 kneti 
 (Rude visitant) knocks hard at your dull sense, 
 And with its thunder scarce obtains your ear 1 
 He death your theme iu ev'ry pi -ice and hour : 
 Nor longer want, ye monumental Sires, 
 A brother tomb to tell you, you shall die. 
 That death you dread, (so great is Nature's skill!) 
 Know you shall court before you shall enjoy 
 
 But you are learn'd ; in volumes deep yoii sitj 
 In wisdom shallow: Pompous ignorance! 
 AVouId you be still more learned than the learn'd? 
 Learn well to know how much need not be known. 
 And what that knowledge wiiich impairs your sense. 
 Our needful knowledge, like our needful food, 
 Unhedg'd, lies open in life's common field, 
 And bids all \vi;lcome to the vital feast. 
 You scorn what lies before you in the page 
 Of nature and experience, moral truth! 
 Of indispensable, eternal fruit! 
 Fruit on which mortals feeding, turn to gods; 
 And dive in science for distinguished names, 
 Dishonest fomentation of your pride, 
 Sinking in virtue as you rise in fame. t 
 
 Your learning, like the lunar beam, afford- 
 Light, but not heat; it leaves you urdevoi.t, 
 Frozen at heart, while speculation shines. 
 Awake, ye curious indagators ; fond 
 Of knowing all, but what avails you know. 
 If yon wnnld lotirn Death's chnract«*r, fttteuiti
 
 116 
 
 THi£ COMPLAIN- r. 
 
 A\] casts of condact, all degrees of health, 
 ^11 dyes ioitiine, and all dates of age, 
 Together shook in his impartial urn, 
 Con^e forth at random; or, if choice is made, 
 'J he choice is quite sarcastic, and insults 
 AW bold coiijecture and fond hopes of man. 
 "What countless multitudes not only leave, 
 Ent deeply disappoint us, by their deaths I 
 Tho* i^reat our sorrow, greater our surprise. 
 
 Like other tyrants, Death delights to smite, 
 AVliat, smitten, most proclaims the pride of povv'r, 
 And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme. 
 To bid the wretch survive the fortunate ; 
 The feeble wrap th' athletic in his shroud j 
 And weeping fathers build their children's tomb : 
 JMe thine, Narcissa! — Whattiio' short thy jjate? 
 Virtue, not rolling suns, the mind matures. 
 That life is long which answers life's great end. 
 The time that bears no fruit deserves no name. 
 'lii(^ man of wisdom is the man of years. 
 In hoary youth Methusalenis may die ; 
 O how ffiisdated on their flatt'ring tombs | 
 
 Narcissa's yciuth has lectur'J me thus far ; 
 And can her gaieiy give counsel too? 
 "i hat, like the Jew's faru'd oracle of gems, 
 Sparcles instruction ; such as throws new lighi, 
 And opens more the character of Death, 
 III know to thcp, Lorenzo, this thy vaunt! 
 " Give Death )\i% due, the wretched and the old; 
 " Ev'n let himi sweep his rubbish to the grave ; 
 '' Let him not violate kind Nature's laws, 
 '• But ovva man born ta live a% vveli 93 die,-*
 
 THE RELAPSE. 117 
 
 \i retched and old thou givM him : young and gay, 
 He lakes ; and plunder is a tyrant's joy. 
 What if I prove, "The farthest from the fear 
 *' Are often nearest to the stroke of fate ?'* 
 All more than common, menaces an end, 
 A blaze betokens brevity of life, 
 As if bright embers should emit a flame, 
 Glad spirits sparkled from Xarcissa's eye, 
 And made youth younger, and taught life to live; 
 As nature's opposites wage endlees war, 
 For this offence, as treason to the deep 
 Inviolable stupor of his reign, 
 "Where lust, and turbulent ambition, sleep. 
 Death took swift vengeance. As he life detests, 
 More life is still more odious : and reiluc'd 
 Ey conquest aggrandizes more his pow'r. 
 But wherefore aggraudiz'd ? by Heav'n's decree 
 To plant the soul on her eternal guard, 
 In awful expectation of our end. 
 Thus runs Death's dread commission ;*' Strike, but so, 
 *' As most alarms the living by the dead." 
 H*^nce stratagem delights him, and surprise, 
 A cruel sport with man's securities. 
 Not simple conquest, triumph is his aim ; 
 A nd where least fear'd, there conquest triumphs mc.-:. 
 Tais proves my bold assertion not too bold. 
 What are his arts to lay our fears asleep ? 
 Tiberian arts his purposes wrap up 
 In deep dissimulation's darkest night. 
 Like princes unconfess'd in foreign courts, 
 Who travel undercover, Death assumes 
 The rarae and look cf life, and dwelia aaaong wfg
 
 \l$ THECOMPLAIXT. 
 
 He takes all shapes that serve his black designs ; 
 Tho' master of a wider empire far 
 Than that o'er which the Romaa Eagle flew. 
 Like Nero, he's a fiddler ; charioteer ; 
 Or drives his phaeton in female guise ; 
 ^Q,uite unsuspected, till the wheel beneath 
 His disarrayM oblation he devours. 
 
 He most affects the forms least like himself, 
 His slender self: hence burly corpulence 
 Is his familiar wear, and sleek disguise. 
 Behind the rosy bloom he loves to lurk, 
 Or ambush in a smile : or, wanton, dive 
 In dimples deep; Love's eddies, which draw in 
 T'nwary hearts, and sink them in despair. 
 Such on Narcissa's couch he loiter'd long 
 Unknown, and when detected, still was seen 
 To smile: such peace has Innocence in death ? 
 Most happy they I whom least his arts deceive. 
 One eye on death, and one full fix'd on heaven, 
 Becomes a mortal and immortal man. 
 Long on his wiles a piqu'd and jealous spy, 
 I'v seen, or dream'd I saw, the tyrant dress, 
 Lay by his horrors, and put on his smiles. 
 Say, muse, for thou remember'st, call it back, 
 And shew Lorenzo the surprising scene ; 
 If 'twas a dream, his genius can explain. 
 
 'Twas in a circle of the gay I stood ; 
 1>eath would have enter'd ; Nature push'd him back 
 Supported by a doctor of renown. 
 His point he gain'd ; then artfully dismissM 
 The sage; for Death designed to be conreal'd> 
 He gave an old vivacious usurrr
 
 'AHE RELVPSil. i 19 
 
 His meagre aspect, and his naked bones ; 
 
 In gratitude for plumping up bis prey, 
 
 A pamper M spendtbrit't, whose fantastic air, 
 
 "Well-fashionM figure, and cockaded brow, 
 
 He took in change, and underneath the pride 
 
 Of costly linen tuck'd his filthy j-hroud. 
 
 His crooked bow he straighten'd to a cane. 
 
 And hid his deadly shafts in Myra's eye. 
 
 The dreadful masquerader, thus equipp'd, 
 
 Outsallies on adventures. Ask you where ? 
 
 Where is he not ? For his peculiar haunts 
 
 Let this suflBce ; sure as night follows day. 
 
 Death treads in pleasure's footsteps round the world, 
 
 When Pleasure treads the pathswhich Reason shuns 
 
 When against Reason Riot shuts the door, 
 
 And Gaiety supplies the place of Sense, 
 
 Then foremost, at the banquet and the ball. 
 
 Death leads the dance, or stamps the deadly dye ; 
 
 Nor ever fails the midnight bowl to crown. 
 
 Gaily carousing to his gay compeers, 
 
 Inly he laughs to see them laugh at him, 
 
 As absent far ; and when the revel burns. 
 
 When fear is banisb'd, and triumphant Thought, 
 
 Calling for all the joys beneath the moon, 
 
 Against him turns, the key, and bids him sup 
 
 With their progenitors — he drops bis mask, 
 
 Frowns out at full; they start, despair, expire. 
 
 Scarce with more sudden terror and surprise 
 From his black mask of nitre, touch'd by fire, 
 He bursts, expands, roars' blazes, and devours 
 And is not this triuir>phant. treachery, 
 And !iiore than simple conquest in the fient' ?
 
 120 THECOMPLAIXT. 
 
 And now, Lorenzo, dost thou wrap thy soul 
 In soft security, because unknown 
 "Which moment is commissiouM to destroy ? 
 In death's uncertainty thy danger lies. 
 Is death uncertain ? therefore thou be fixM, 
 Fix'd as a centinel, all eye, all ear, 
 All expectation of the coming foe. 
 Rouse, stand in arms, nor lean against thy spear, 
 Lest slumber steal one moment o*er thy soul, 
 And Fate surprise thee nodding. Watch, be strong 
 Thus give each day the merit and renow n 
 Of dying well, tho' doom'd but once to die. 
 Nor let life's period, hidden (as from most) 
 Hide, too, from thee the precious use of life. 
 
 Early, not sudden, was Narcissa's fate : 
 Soon, not surprising, Death his visit paid : 
 Her thought went forth to meet him on his way, 
 Nor Gaiety forgot it was to die. 
 Tho' fortune too (our third and final theme) 
 As an accomplice, play'd her gaudy plumes, 
 And ev'ry glitt'ring gewgaw, on her sight, 
 To dazzle and debauch it from its mark. 
 Death's dreadful advent is the mark of man, 
 And every thought that misses it is blind. 
 Fortune, with Youth and Gaiety conspir'd 
 To weave a triple wreath of happiness 
 (If happiness on eartii) to crown her brow ; 
 And could death charge thro' such a shining Miifld ? 
 That snining shield invites the tyrant's spear, 
 As if to damp our elevated aims, 
 And strongly preach humility to man. 
 O how portc0tous h prosperity I
 
 SUE RELAFS£. ] li 1 
 
 How, coinet-like, it threatens while it suines ; 
 Few years but yieM us proof of Death's ambitioa, 
 To cull his victims from the faire?t fold, 
 And sheath his shafts in all the pride of life. 
 When flooded with abundance, purpled o'er 
 With recent honours, bloomM with ev'ry bliss, 
 Set up in ostentation, made the gaze, 
 The j^audy centre of the public eye ; 
 When Fortune, thus, has to?s'd her child in air, 
 SnatchVl from the covert of an humble state, 
 How often have I seen him dropt at once, 
 Otir morning's envy I and our evening's sigh! 
 As if her bounties were the signal glv'n, 
 The fiow'ry wreath, to mark the sacrifice, 
 And call death's arrows on the df stiii'd prey. 
 High fortune seems in cruel league with FaJe. 
 Ask you for what ? To give his war on man 
 The deeper dread, and more illustrious spoil ; 
 Thus to keep daring mortals more in awe. 
 And burns Lorenzo still for the sublime 
 Of life ? to hang his airy nest on high, 
 On the slight timber of the topmost bough, 
 Rock'd at each breeze, and menacing a fall ? 
 Granting grim death at equal distance there, 
 Yet peace begins just where ambition ends. 
 What makes man wretched ? happiness deny'd ? 
 Lorenzo I no, 'tis happiness disdain'd. 
 She comes too meanly dress'd to win our smile, 
 And calls herself Content, a horaoly name; 
 Our flame is transport, and content our scorn, 
 Ambition turns and shuts the door against her ; 
 And weds a toil, a tempest in her stead ; 
 A tempest to warm transport near of kin.
 
 122 THE CO.MI'LA.IM'. 
 
 Unknowing what our mortal state adiiiiti 
 Life's raodept joys we ruin while we raisi', 
 And all our ecstacies are wounds to peace ; 
 Peace, the full portion of mankind below. 
 
 And since t!iy peace is dear, ambitious Youth : 
 Of fortune fond ! as thoughtless of thy fate! 
 As late I drew Death's picture, to stir up 
 Thy wholesome fears, now, drawn in contrast, see 
 Gay Fortune's, thy vain hopes to reprimand. 
 See, high in air the sportive goddess hang?, 
 Unlocks her casket, spreads her giitt'ring ware, 
 And calls the giddy winds to puff abroad 
 Her random bounties o'er the gaping throng. 
 All rush rapacious; friends o'er trodden friends, 
 Sons o'er their fathers, subjects o'er their kiagr~, 
 Priests o'er their gods, and lovers o'er the fair, 
 (Still more ador'd to snatch the golden ?how'r. 
 
 Gold glitters most where virtue shines no more, 
 As stars from absent suns have leave to shine. 
 O what a precious pack of votaries, 
 Unkennel'd from the prisons and ihe stews, 
 Pour in, all op'ning in their idol's praise I 
 All, ardent, eye each waftuie of her hand. 
 And wiue-expanding their voracious jaws, 
 ^Morsel on morsel swallow down unchew'd, 
 Untasted, thro' mad appetite for more ; 
 GorgM to the throat, yet lean and rav'nous still : 
 Sagacious all to trace the smallest game. 
 And bold to seize the greatest. If (blest chance !) 
 Couit-Zfphyrs sweetly breatlie, they launch, theyfiy, 
 O'er just, o*er sacred, ali-forbldden ground, 
 Diunk with the burning scent of place or pow'r. 
 ■^'niinch to the foot of Lucre till tbcv die.-
 
 TRE BFLAPsT-. 123 
 
 Or if for men j'ou take them, as I mark 
 Q berr manners thou their various fates survey. 
 Witii aim mismeasur'd, and impetuous speed, 
 5ome darting, strike their ardent wish far off, 
 Tliro' fury to possess it: sorae succeed, 
 Bjt stumble and let fall the taken prize 
 From, some by sudden blasts 'tis whirl'd away, 
 And lodg'd in bosoms that ne'er dream'd of ^ain. 
 To sorae it sticks so close, that, when torn off, 
 Torn is the man, and mortal is the wound. 
 Some, o'er-enamour'd of their bags, run mad, 
 Groan under gold, yet weep ft*r want of bread. 
 Together some (unhappy rivals I) seize. 
 And rend abundance into poverty ; 
 Loud croaks the raven of the law, and smiles ; 
 Smiles too the goddess; but smiles moit at those 
 (Just victims of exorbitant desire I) 
 "Who perish at their own request, and whelrn'J 
 Beneath her load of lavish grants, expire. 
 Fortune is famous for her numbers slain ; 
 The number small which happiness can bear. 
 Tho' various for awhile their fates, at last 
 One curse involves them all ; at death's approach 
 All read their riches backward into loss, 
 And mourn, in just proportion to their store. 
 
 And Death's approach (if orthodox my son^} 
 Is hasten'd by the lure of Fortu.ne's smiles 
 And art thou still a glutton of bright gtdd ? 
 Aad art ihou still rapacious of thy ruin ? 
 Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow : 
 A blow which, while it executes, alarms, 
 Ao^ itsrtiea thousands with a single fdil
 
 124 THE COMPLAIMX. 
 
 As when some stately gowth of oak, or pine, 
 Which nods aloft, and proudly spreds her shade, 
 The sun's defiance and the flock's defence, 
 By the strong strokes of lab'ring hinds subdu'd, 
 Loud groans her last, and rushing from her height 
 In cumb'rous ruin thunders to the ground ; 
 The conscious forest trenibles at the shock, 
 x^nd hill, and stream, and distant dale resound. 
 
 These high-aim'd darts of death, and these alone. 
 Should I collect, my quiver would be full ; 
 A quiver which, suspended in mid air, 
 Or near heaven's archer, in the zodiac, hang, 
 (So could it be) should draw the public eye. 
 The gaze and contemplation of mankind ; 
 A constellation awful, yet benign, 
 To guide the gay thro' life's tempestuous wave, 
 Nor suffer them to strike the common rock; 
 " From greater danger to grow more secure, 
 " And, wrapt in happiness, forget their faith." 
 
 Lysander, happy past the common lot. 
 Was vvarn'd of danger, but too gay to fear. 
 He woo'd the fair Aspasia : she was kind : 
 In youth, form, fortune, fame, they both were 
 
 bless'd : 
 All who knew, envy'd ; yet in envy lov'd ; 
 Can fancy form more finish'd happiness? 
 Fix'd was the nuptial hour. Her stately dome 
 R^ose on the sounding beach. The glitt'ring spires 
 Float in the wave, and break against the shore: 
 So break those glitt'ring shadows, human joys. 
 The faithless morning prail'd : he takes his leave 
 To re-er»', brace, in ecstacies, at ev?.
 
 The rising storm forbids. The news arrives ; 
 
 ITntoId she saw it in her servant's eye. 
 
 She felt it seen (her heart was apt to feel) 
 
 And drown'd, without the furious ocean's aid, 
 
 In suffocating sorrows shares his tomb. 
 
 Now round the sumptuous bridal monument 
 
 The guilty billows innocently roar, 
 
 And the rough sailor passing, drops a tear. 
 
 A tear? — can tears suffice? — but not for rnc. 
 
 How vain our efforts ! and our arts how vain ! 
 
 The distant train of thought I took, to shun, 
 
 Has thrown rae on my fate. — These dy'd togethp- ^ 
 
 Happy in ruin I undivorc'd by death I 
 
 Or ne'er to meet, or ne'er to part, is peace. — 
 
 Narcissa, Pity bleeds at thought of thee ; 
 
 Yet thou wast only near me, not myself. 
 
 Survive myself? — that cures all other woe, 
 
 Narcissa lives ; Philander is forgot. 
 
 O the soft commerce I O the tender ties, 
 
 Close twisted with the fibres of the heart I 
 
 Which broken, break thera, and drain off the soui 
 
 Of human joy, and raake it pain to live. — 
 
 And is it then to live I when such friends part, 
 
 'Tis the survivor dies. — Hv heart I no more.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE IXFIDEL RECLAIMED. 
 
 Few ages have been deeper in dispute about reli- 
 gion, than this. The dispute about religiou, and 
 the practice of it, seldom go together. The shorter 
 therefore the dispute, the better. I think it may be 
 reduced to this single question, Is 3Ian Immortal ai- 
 ls he not? If he is not, all our disputes are mere 
 amusements, or trials of skill. In this case, truth, 
 reason, religion, which gave our discourses sucli 
 pomp and soieirinity, are, (as will be shewn) mere 
 empty sounds, without any meaning in them : But 
 if man is immortal, it will behove him to be very 
 serious about eternal consequences; or, in other 
 word^, to be truly religious. And this great funda- 
 mental truth, unestabiished, or una wakened in the 
 minds ofreen, is, I conceive, the real source and 
 support of all our infidelity ; how remote soever the 
 particular objections advanced may seem to be from 
 it. 
 
 Sensible appearances affect most men much more 
 than Rb'tract reasonings; and we daily see bodies 
 drop around us. but the soul is invisible. The power 
 which inclination has over the judgment, h greater 
 than can be well conceived by those who have not 
 had any experience of it ; and of what numbers is it 
 the sad interest, that souls shouhl not survive! The 
 Heathen world confessed, that they rather hoped, 
 than firmly believed Jmmoitality ! and how many 
 Heathens have we still aniongst iss! The sacred page 
 as-ures us, that life aud immortality are brought to 
 light by ihe gospel ; But by how many is the gosijc)
 
 PREFACE. 127 
 
 pvjccted, or ovcrloolicd ? From these consit!craliori«, 
 anil Irom uiy being, accidefitally, privy to the seiili- 
 naejits of some particular persons, 1 liave been long 
 persuaileil, that most, il' not all, our infidels (what- 
 ever name they take, and whatever scheme for argu- 
 ment's sake, ant! to keep themselves in conntenance, 
 they patronize) are supported in their dofilorablo er- 
 ror, by some doubt of their innnortality, at the bot- 
 tom. Anc*" I am satij'fied, that men once thoronglily 
 convinced of their immortality, are not far from be- 
 ing Christians. For it is hard to coHceive, that a 
 man fully conscious eternal pain or happines will 
 certainly be his lot, should not earnestly, and im- 
 partially, inquire after the surest means of escaping 
 one, and securing the oilier. And of such an earnest 
 and imj^artial inquiry, I well know the consequence. 
 Here, tiierefore, in proof of this most fundamen- 
 tal tiutii. some plain arguments are ottered ; argti- 
 ments derived froiu principles which Infidels adujit 
 in common with Relievers; arguments which ap- 
 pear to me altogether irresiitible ; and such as, I 
 em patisfied, will have great weight w ith nil who 
 give themselves the small trouble of looking serious- 
 ly into their own bosoms, and of observing, with 
 any tolerable degree of attention, ^hat daily passes 
 round about tliera in the world. If some arguments 
 shall here occur, which others have declined, they 
 are submitted, with all deference, to better judg- 
 ments in this, of all points, the most important. 
 For as to the being of a GOD, that is no longer 
 disputed; but it is undisputed for this reason only, 
 viz. Because, w here the least pretence to reason 
 i«j admitted, it must for ever be in(lisputal)ie. And 
 of conscijuence no man can be betruyed into a dis- 
 pute of that nature by vanity, which has a princi- 
 pal share in animating our nioiiern combatants 
 a'.£ain«t other i;rliclcs of our belief.
 
 THfe 
 
 tJOMPLAIxNT. 
 
 vwvw 
 
 XIGHT TI, 
 
 vwvw 
 
 THE IXBIDEL RECLAIMED. 
 
 IN TWO PARTS. 
 
 Containing 
 Th.e Nature, Prcn)/, and Importance of Jnunorialii^ 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Where, c^nong other things, Glory and Riches are par- 
 ticularly considered. 
 
 INSCBIBED TO THE RT. UOTi . HENRY PELHAM. 
 
 She*^ (for I know not yet her name in lieav'n) 
 Not early, like Narcissa, left the scene, 
 Nor sutlden, like Philander. What avail. ^ 
 This seeming mitigation but inflames : 
 This fancy'd med'cine heightens the disease. 
 The longer known, the closer still she grew, 
 And gradual parting is a gradual death. 
 'Tis the grim tyrant's engine which extort?. 
 
 * Referring to Night the Fifth.
 
 THE IKFIDEL RECLAIMED. 129 
 
 By tardy pressure's still increasing weight, 
 From hardest hearts confession of distress. 
 
 O the long dark approach, thro' years of pain, 
 Death's gall'ry I (might I dare to call it so) 
 ^>Vith dismal doubt and sable terror hung. 
 Sick Hope's pale lamp its only glimra'ring ray: 
 There, Fate my melancholy walk ordain'd, 
 Forbid SeU-lo\-e itself to flatter, there. 
 How oft I gaz'd prophetically sad I 
 How oft I saw her dead, while yet in smiles! 
 In smileK she sunk her grief to lessen mine : 
 She spoke me comfort, and increas'd ray pain. 
 I>ike powerful armies, trenching at a town, 
 By slow and silent, but resistless, sap, 
 In his pale progress gently gaining ground, 
 Death nrg'd his deadly siege ; in spite of art, 
 Of all the balmy blessings Nature lends 
 To succour frail humanity. Ye Stars I 
 (Xot now first made familiar to my sight) 
 And thou, O moon I bear witness ; many a nigh* 
 He tore the pillow from beneath my head, 
 Ty'd down my sore attention to the shock 
 By ceaseless depredations on a life 
 Dearer than that he left me. Dread fal post 
 Of observation ! darker ev'ry hour I 
 Less dread the day that drove me to the brink, 
 And pointed at eternity below, 
 "When my soul shudder'd at futurity, 
 "When, on a moment's point th' important dye 
 Of life and death spun doubtful, ere it fell. 
 And turn'd up life, m}* title to more woe. 
 
 But why more woe ? 3Iore comfort let it b?. 
 
 ToL. I. G
 
 130 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Nothing is dead but that which vish to die; 
 Nothing is dead but wretchedness and pain; 
 Nothing is dead but what incumberVl, gal!*d, 
 Block'd up the pass, and barr'd from real life. 
 "Where dwells that wish most ardent of the wise F' 
 Too dark the sun to see it ; highest stars 
 Too low to reach it; Death, great Death aloncj 
 O'er stars and sun. triumphant, lands us there. 
 
 TSor dreadful our transition, tho' the mind, 
 An artist at creating self-alarms, 
 Rich in expedients for inquietude, 
 Is prone to paint it dreadful. Who can take 
 Death's portrait true? the tyrant never sat. 
 Our sketch all random strokes, conjecture all ; 
 Close shuts the grave, nor tells one single tale. 
 Death and hi ■ image cising in the brain 
 Bear faint resemblance ; never are alike; 
 Fear shakes the pencil ; Fancy loves excess ; 
 Dark Ignorance is lavish of her shades ; 
 And these the formidable picture draw. 
 
 But grant the worst 'Ti« past : new prospects rise 
 And drop a veil eternal o'er her tomb. 
 Far other views our contemplation claim, 
 Views that o'erpay the rigour? of our life ; 
 Views that suspend our agonies in death. 
 Wrapt in the thought of immortality, 
 Wrapt in the single, the triumphant thought ! 
 ".Long life might lapse, age unperceiv'd come on. 
 And find the soul uusated with her theme. 
 Its nature, proof, importance, f.re my song. 
 O that my song could emulate my soul ! 
 l^kf her, immortal. No ! — the soul disdains 
 k mark so mean j far nobler hope inflames ;
 
 THE IMFIDKL RBCLAIMtD. 131 
 
 If endless agos can outweigh an hour, 
 Let aot the laurel, but the palm, inspire. 
 Thy nature, immortality I who knows? 
 And yet who knows it not? It is but life 
 In .=tronger thread of brij$hter colour spun, 
 And spun for ever ; dipt by cruel Fate 
 In St3'gian dye, how black, how brittle, here » 
 How fhort our correspondence with the =un ! 
 And while it la^^ls inglorious ! Our best deeds, 
 How wanting in their weight I Our higher^t joys, 
 Small cordiHl? to support us ia our pain, 
 And give uh strength to suffer. But how great 
 To mingle inl'rests, converse, amities, 
 With all the sons of reason, scatler'd wide 
 Thro' habitable space, wherever born, 
 Howe'er cndowM ! To live free citizens 
 Of universal nature ! To lay hold, 
 Py more than feeble faith, on the Supreme ! 
 To call heav'n's rich unfathomable mines 
 (.'vline< »\ hich support archanglesin their state) 
 Our own I to rise in science as in bliss. 
 Initiate in the secrets of the skies I 
 To read creation ; read its mighty plaa 
 In the bare bosom of the Deity I 
 The plan and execution to collate! 
 To see, before each glance of piercing thought 
 All cloud, all shadow, blown remote, and leave 
 No mystery— but that of lf>ve divine, 
 AThich lifts us on the seraph's flaming wing, 
 From earth's Aceldama, this field of blood, 
 Ofinuard anguish, and of outward ill, 
 From darknefis and from dust, to such a scene !
 
 132 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Love's element ! true joy's illustrious horae i 
 From earth's sad contrast (now deplor'd) more fair I 
 What exquisite vicissitude of fate! 
 Bless'd absolution of our blackest hour! 
 
 Lorenzo, these are thoughts that make man Man. 
 The wise illumine, aggrandize the great. 
 How great (while yet, we tread the kindred clod, 
 And ev'ry moment fear to sink beneath 
 The clod we tread, soon trodden by our sons) 
 How great, in the wild whirl of time's pursuits, 
 To stop, and pause ; involv'd in high presage 
 Thro' the long visto of a thousand years, 
 To stand contemplating our distant selves, 
 As in a magnifying mirror seen, 
 Enlarg'd, ennobled, elevate, divine ! 
 To prophesy our own futurities ! 
 To gaze in thought on what all thought transcends ' 
 To talk, with fellow-candidates, of joys 
 As far beyond conception as desert, 
 Ourselves th' astonish'd talkers and the tale ! 
 
 Lorenzo, swells thy bosom at the thought ? 
 The swell becomes thee : 'tis an honest pride. 
 Revere thyself, — and yet thyself despise. 
 His nature no man can o'er-rate, and none 
 Can under-rate his merit. Take good heed, 
 Nor there be modest where thou shouldst be prcKid : 
 That almost universal error shun. 
 How just our pride, when we behold those heights ! 
 Not those Ambition paints in air, but those 
 Keason paints out, and ardent Virtue gains, 
 And angels emulate. Our pride how just ! 
 When mount we ? when these shakies cast ? when 
 
 (5Uit
 
 THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED. 133 
 
 This cell of the creation? this ."mall nest, 
 Stuck in a corner of the universe, 
 Wrapt up in ileecy cloud and fine-spun air ? 
 Fine-spun to sense, but gross and feculent 
 To souis celestial : souls ordainM to breathe 
 Ambrosial gales, and drink a pnrer sky ; 
 Greatly triumphant on Time's farther shore, 
 Where virtue reigns, enrich'd with full arrearg , 
 While Porap imperial begs an alms of Peace. 
 
 In empire high, or in proud science deep, 
 Ye born of Earth, on what can you confer, 
 With half the dignity, with half the gain, 
 The gust, the glow of rational delight, 
 As on this theme, which angels praise and share? 
 Man's fates and favours are a theme in heav'n. 
 
 What wretched repetition cloys us here? 
 What periodic potions for the sick ! 
 Distemper'd bodies ! and dlstemper'd minds ! 
 In an eternity, what scenes shall strike I 
 Adventures thicken! novelties surprise I 
 W^hat webs of wonder shall unravel there ! 
 What full day pour on all the paths of heav'n, 
 And light th' Almighty's footsteps in the deep ! 
 How shall the blessed day of our discljarge 
 Unwind, at once, the labyrinths of Fate, 
 And straighten it> inextricable maze I 
 
 If inextinguishable thirst in man 
 To know? how rich, how full, our banquet thers I 
 There, not the moral world alone unfolds ; 
 The world material, lately seen in shades, 
 And in those shades by fragments only seen, 
 And seen those fragoients by thelab'ring eye,
 
 154 TitE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Unbroken, then, illustrious anil entire, 
 > Its ample sphere, its universal frame, 
 In full dimensions, swells to the survey, 
 And enters, at one glance, the ravish'd sight. 
 From some superior point (where who can tell ? 
 SufBce it, 'tis a point where gods reside) 
 How shall the stranger, man's illumin'd eye, 
 In the vast ocean of unbounded space,. 
 Behold an infinite of floating worlds 
 Divide the crystal ^v•aves of ether pure. 
 In endless voyage, without port? The least 
 Of these disseminated orbs how great! 
 Great as they are, what numbers these surpass, 
 Huge as leviathan to that small race, 
 Those twinkling multitudes of little life, 
 He swallows unperceiv'd ! Stupendous these! 
 Yet what are these stupendous to the whole ? 
 As particles, as atoms ill-perceiv'd ; 
 As circulating globules in our veins ; 
 So vast the plan. Fecundity divine I 
 Exuberant sourcel perhaps I wrong thee still. 
 
 If admiration is a source of joy. 
 What transport hence ! yet this the least in heav'n- 
 What this to that illustrious robe he wears. 
 Who toss'd this mass of wonders from his hand 
 A specimen, an earnest of his pov/'r ? 
 'Tis to that glory, whence all glory (lows. 
 As the mead's meanest flow'ret to the sun 
 Which gave it birth. But what this sun of heav'n? 
 This bliss supreme of th' supremely blest ? 
 Death, only death, the question can resolve. 
 By death cheap bought th' ideas of our joy ;
 
 THF IXFIDEL RECLAIMED. 13j> 
 
 The bare ideas ! soliJ happiness 
 
 So distant from its shadow chas'd belo\r. 
 
 And chase we ftill the phantom thro' the fire, 
 O'er bog, and brake, and precipice till death? 
 And toil we still for sublunary pay? 
 Defy the dangers of the field and flood, 
 Or, spider-like, spin out our precious all, 
 Our more than vital? spin (if no regard 
 To great futurity) in curious webs 
 Of subtle thought and exquisite design. 
 (Fine network of the brain !) to catch a fly * 
 The momentary buz of vain renown 1 
 A name I a mortal immortality » 
 
 Or (meaner still) instead of gra?ping air, 
 For sordid lucre plunge we in the mire ? 
 Drudge, sweat, thro' ev'ry shame, for ev'ry gain, 
 For vile contaminating trash ; throw up 
 Our hope in heav'n, our dignity with man. 
 And deify the dirt matur'd to gold ? 
 Ani!)ition, Av'rice, the two deeraons these 
 Which goad thro' ev'ry slough our human herd, 
 Haid-traveil'd from the cradle to the grave, 
 How low the wretches stoop I how steep they cliinb : 
 The?e daemons burn mankind, but most possess 
 Lorenzo's bosom, and turn out the skies. 
 Is it in time to hide eternity ? 
 And why not in an atom on the shore 
 To cover ocean ? or a mote the sun ? ' 
 
 Glory and wealth I have I'ley this blinding pow'r .' 
 What if to them I prove Lorenzo blind ? 
 Would it surprise thee ? Be thou then surpris'd : 
 Th9U lieitber kaow'st : their nature learn from me.
 
 13G THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Mark well, as foreign as these subjects seem. 
 AYhat close connection ties them to my theme. 
 First, what is true ambition ? The pursuit 
 Of glory nothing less than man can bhare. 
 Were they as vain as gaudy-minded man, 
 As fiatuleut with fumes of self-applause. 
 Their arts and conquests animals might boast, 
 And claim their laurel crowns as well as we, 
 But not celestial Here we stand alone ; 
 As in our form, distinct, pre-eminent; 
 If prone in thought, our stature is our shame ; 
 An<l man should blush, his forehead meets the skies. 
 The visible and present are for brutes, 
 A slender portion ! and a narrow bound I 
 Tiiese. Reason, with an energy divine, 
 O'erleaps, and claims the future and imseen ; 
 The vast unseen ! the future fathomless ! 
 When the great soul buoys up to this high point, 
 Leaving gross Nature's sediments below, 
 Then, and then only, Adam's offspring quits 
 The sage and hero of the fields and woods, 
 Asserts his rank, and rises into man. 
 This is ambition : this is human fire. 
 
 Can parts, or place (two bold pretenders !) icakei 
 Lorenzo great, and pluck him from the throng? 
 
 Genius and art, ambition's boasted wings, 
 Our boast, but ill deserve. A feeble aid I 
 Dedalion engin'ry ! If these alone 
 Assist our fli,rht fame's flight is glory's fall, 
 Heart-merit wanting, mount we ne'er so high. 
 Our height is but the gibbet of our name. 
 A celebrated wretch when I behold, 
 WUea I behold ji genius bright, and base,
 
 THE INFIDEL EECLA.1MED. 137 
 
 Of toivVin;; talents and terrestrial aims ; 
 Jlfthink? I see, as thrown from her high sphere, 
 The glorious fragments of a soul immortal, 
 Wiih rubhish raixM, and glitt'ring in the dust, 
 Struck at the splendid, melancholy sight, 
 At once compassion soft, and envy, rise 
 But wherefore envy ? Talents angel-bright, 
 If wanting worth, are shining instruments 
 In false ambition's hand, to finish faults 
 Illustrious, aud give infiimy.renown.i 
 
 Great ill is an achievement of great powers . 
 Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray. 
 Reason the raeans, affections choose our end ; 
 3Iea!is hav^e no merit, if our end amiss. 
 If wrong our hearts, our heads are right in vain , 
 What is a Pclham's head to Pelham's heart 1 
 Hearts are proprietors of all applause. 
 Right ends and means make wisdom : Worldly wigt 
 Is but half-witted, at its highest praise. 
 
 Let genius then despair to make thee great ; 
 Nor tlatter station. What is station high? 
 'Tis a proud mendicant ; it boasts, and begs ; 
 It begs an alms of homage from the throng, 
 And oft the th;ong denies its charity. 
 Monarch*, and ministers, are awful names ; 
 Whoever wear them, challenge our devoir. 
 Religion, public order, both exact 
 Exiernal homage, and a supple knee, 
 To beings pompously set up, to serve 
 The meanest slave ; all more is merit's due^ 
 IJer sacrf-'d and inviolable right ; 
 Nor ever paid the monarch, but the man, 
 G2
 
 138 'i'HE coMPI.AI^-T. 
 
 Our hearts ne'er bow but to superior worth ; 
 
 Nor ever fail of their allegiance there. 
 
 Fools, indeed, drop the man in their account, 
 
 And vote the mantle into majesty. 
 
 Let the small savage boast his silver fur ; 
 
 His royal robe unborrowed, and unbought. 
 
 His own, descending fairly from his sires. 
 
 Shall man be proud to wear his livery, 
 
 And souls in ermine scorn a soul without ? 
 
 Can place or lessen us, or aggrandize ? 
 
 Pigmies are pigmies still, tho' perch'd on Alps j 
 
 And pyramids are pyramids in vales. 
 
 Each man makes his own stature, builds himself: 
 
 Virtue alone out-builds the pyramids ; 
 
 Her monuments shall last, when Egypt's fall, 
 
 Of these sure truths dost thou demand the cause ? 
 The cause is lodg'd in immortality. 
 Hear, and assent. Thy bosom burns for pow'r ; 
 What station charms thee ? I'll instal thee there; 
 'Tis thine. And art thou greater than before ? 
 Then thou before wast something less than man. 
 Has thy new post betray'd thee into pride ? 
 That treach'rous pride betrays thy dignity ? 
 That pride defames humanity, and calls 
 The being mean, which staffs or strings can raise. 
 That pride, like hooded hawks in darkness soars, 
 From blindness bold, and tow'ring to the skies. 
 *Tis born of ignorance, which knows not man J 
 An angel's second ; nor his second long. 
 A Nero quitting his imperial throne. 
 And courting glory from the tinkling string, 
 But faintly shadows an immortal soul, 
 With empire's self, to pride or rapture fir'd;
 
 THE IJ^PIDEL RECLAIMED. 139 
 
 If nobler motive's minister no cure, 
 Es''n vanity forbids tiiee to be vain. 
 
 High uortlj is elevated place ; 'tis more; 
 It makes tlie post stand candidate for thee : 
 Makes more than monarch's, makes an honest man ; 
 Tho' no exchequer it commands, 'tis wealth ; 
 And tho' it wears no ribband, 'tis renown ; 
 Renown, that would not quit thee, tho' disgrac'J, 
 Nor leave thee pendant on a master's smiie. 
 Other ambition nature interdicts: 
 Nature proclaims it mostabsnid in man, 
 By pointing at his origin, and end ; 
 Milk and a swathe, at first his whole demarxi ; 
 His whole domain, at last, a turf or stone ; 
 To whom, between, a world may seera too small. 
 
 Souls truly great, dart forward on the wing 
 Ofjust ambition to the grand result. 
 The curtain's fall , there, see the buskin'd cliief 
 Unshod behind this momentary scene ; 
 lleduc'd to his own stature, low or high, 
 As vice, or virtue, sinks him, or sublimes ; 
 And iaugh at this fantastic mummery,' 
 This antic prelude of grotesque events, 
 "Where dwarfs are o'len stilted, and betray, 
 A littleness of soul by worlds o'er-run, 
 And nations laid in blood. Dread sacrifice 
 To christian pride I which had with horr(>r shock'd 
 The darkest pagans, oller'il to their gods. 
 
 O thou most chi-istian euemy to peace I 
 Again inarms? again provoking fate? 
 That priiice, and that alone, is truly great, 
 "Vrho di-iius the sword reluctant, gladly sheathefc I
 
 l40 tHECOilPLArNf. 
 
 On empire builus what empire far out-welgli?, 
 And makes bis throne a scatFold to the skies. 
 Why this po rare ? because forgot of all 
 The <lay of death , that venerable day, 
 Which sits as judge ; that day which shal' pronounce 
 On all our days, absolve Ihem, or condemn. 
 Tjorenzo, never shut thy thought against it ; 
 Be ievees ne'er so full, afford it room, 
 "And give it audience in the cabinet. 
 That friend consulted (flatteries apart) 
 "VVil! tell thee fair, if thou art great or mean. 
 To doat on aught may leave us, or'be left, 
 Is that ambition ? Then let flames descend, 
 Point to the centre their inverted spires, 
 And learn humiliation from a soul, 
 Which boasts her lineage from celestial fire. 
 Yet these are they the w^orld pronounces wise ; 
 The world, which cancel'-; nature's right and wrong. 
 And casts new wisdom : Ev'n the grave man lends 
 His solemn face to countenance the coin. 
 Wisdom for parts is madness for the whole. 
 This stamps the paradox, and gives us leave 
 To call the wisest weak, the richest poor. 
 The most ambitious, unambitious, mean ; 
 In triumph, mean ; and abject on a throne. 
 Nothing can make it less than mad in man, 
 To put forth all hisordour, all his art, 
 And give his soul her full unbounded flight. * 
 
 But reaching him, who gave her wing?^to fly. 
 When blind ambition quite mistakes her road, 
 And downward pores, for that which shines above, 
 Substantial happiness, and true renown, 
 Then, like an idiot gazing on the brook.
 
 THE IXPIDEL TlECLAlMEO. j/Jl 
 
 We leap at stars, and fasten in the tnud ; 
 At glory grasp, and «u)k in infamy. 
 
 Ambition ! pow'rful source of good and ill ! 
 Thy strength* in man, like length of wing in birds ; 
 "When disengag'd from earth, with greater ease, 
 And swifter flight, transports us to the skies ; 
 By toys entangled, or in guilt bemir'd. 
 It turns a curse : it is our chain, and scourge, 
 In this dark dungeon, where confin'd we tie. 
 Close-grated by the sordid bars of sense; 
 All prospect of eternity shut out ; 
 ^Lnd, but for execution, ne'er set free. 
 With error in ambition justly charg'd, 
 Find we Lorenzo wiser in his wealth ? 
 "What if thy rental I reform ; and draw 
 An Inventory new to set thee right ? 
 Wher?, thy true treasure ? Gold says, ' not in me ' 
 And, ' not in me,' theDi'inond. Gold is poor; 
 India's insolvent: seek it in thyself, 
 Seek in thy naked self, and find it Uiers : 
 In being so descended, forra'd, endow'd ; 
 Sky-born, sky-guided, shy-returning racs ! 
 Erect immortal, rational, divine I 
 In senses which inherit earth, and heavn's; 
 Enjoy the various riches nature yields ; 
 Far nobler; give the riches they enjoy : 
 Give taste to fruits ; and harmony to groves ; 
 Their radiant beams to gold, and gold's bright sire: 
 Take in, at once, the landscape of the world 
 At a small inlet, which a grain might close. 
 And half-create the wond'rous world they sec. 
 Gur senses, as our reason, are divine.
 
 142 THE COMPLAIKT. 
 
 But for the magic organ's pow'rful charm, 
 
 Earth were a rude, uncolour'd chaos, still. 
 
 Objects are but th* occasion ; ours th* exploits 
 
 Ours is tiie cloth, the pencil, and the paint, 
 
 Which nature's admirable picture draws, 
 
 And beautifies creation's ample dome. 
 
 Like Milton's Eve, when gazing on the lake, 
 
 Man makes the matchless image, man admires. 
 
 Say then, shall man, his thoughts all sent abroad 
 
 (Superior wonders in himself forgot) 
 
 His admiration waste on objects round, 
 
 When heav'n makes him the soul of all he sees? 
 
 Absurd I not rare ! so great, so mean, is man. 
 
 AVhat wealth in senses such as these I What wealtk 
 In fancy, fir'd to form a faiier scene. 
 Than sense surveys ! In memory's firm record, 
 Which, should it perish, could this world recall 
 From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years ! 
 In colours fresh originally bright, 
 Preserve its portrait, and report its fate I 
 What wealth in intellect, that sov'reign pow'r I 
 Which sense, and fancy ^ummons to the bar: 
 Interrogates, approves, or reprehends : 
 And from the mass those underlings i.-nport, 
 From their materials sifted and refin'd, 
 And in truth's balance accurately weigh'd. 
 Forms art, and science, government, and law ; 
 The solid basis, and the beauteous frame, 
 The vitals and the grace of civil life ! 
 And manners (sad exception !) set aside, 
 Stril^es out, with master-hand, a copy fair 
 Of his idea, whose indulgent thought, 
 iuDgj lon^, ere chaos leem'd, plann'd huniftn bliss.
 
 tHE INFIDEL RECLAIMED. 143 
 
 "What wealth in souls that «oar,(live, range around, 
 Disdaining limit, or from place, or time ; 
 And hear at once, in thought extensive, hear, 
 Th' almighty fiat, and the trumpet's sound ? 
 Bold, on creation's outside walk, and view 
 "What was, and is, and more than e'er shall be ; 
 Commanding, with omnipotence of thouglit, 
 Creation's new in fancy's field to rise I 
 Soulf, that can grasp whate'erthe Almighty made, 
 And wander wild thro' things impossible I 
 "What wealth, in faculties of endless growth. 
 In quenchless passions violent to crave, 
 In liberty to choose, in power to reach. 
 And in duration (how thy riches rise !) 
 Duration to perpetuate — boundless bliss .' 
 
 Ask you, what pow'er resides in feeble man 
 Tiiat bliss to gain ? Is virtue's, then unknown ? 
 Virtue, our present peace, our future prize, 
 Man's unprecarious, natural estate, 
 Improveable at will, in virtue lies ; 
 Its tenure sure ; its income is divine. 
 
 High-built abundance, heap on heap ! for what? 
 To breed new wants and beggar us the more ! 
 Then, make a richer scramble for the throng. 
 Soon as this feeble pulse, which leaps so long 
 Almost by miracle, is tir'd with play, 
 Like rubbish from disploding engines thrown, 
 Our magazines of hoarded trifles fly; 
 Fly diverse ; fly to foreigners, to foes ; 
 New masters court, and call the former fool 
 (How justly I) for dependence on their stay. 
 "Wide scatter, first oar play things ; then our dujt.
 
 144 THE C05£PLAI^'T. 
 
 Dost court aboun-lance for the sake of pertce ? 
 
 Learn, and latTier;t thy self-Mefeated scheme ■ 
 
 Riches enable to be richer still ; 
 
 Au(\, richer still, what mortal can resist? 
 
 Thus wealth (a cruel task-raaster !}• enjoins 
 
 New toils, succeeding toils, an endless train ! 
 
 And murders peace, which taught it first to shine. 
 
 The poor are half as wretched as the rich ; 
 
 "Whose proud and painful privilege it is, 
 
 At once, to bear a doable load of woe; 
 
 To feel the stings of envy ; and of want, 
 
 Outrageous want! both iiulies cannot cure. 
 A competence is vital to content. 
 
 Much wealth is corpulence, if not disease ; 
 
 Sick, or incufnber'd, is our happiness, 
 
 A competence is all we can enjoy. 
 
 O be content, where beav'n can can give no more ! 
 
 More, like a flash of water from a lock, 
 
 Quickens our spirit's movement-4'or an hour ; 
 But soon its force is spent, nor rise our joys. 
 
 Above our native temper's common stream. 
 Hence disappointment lurks in ev'ry prize, 
 As bees in flovv'rs, and stings u6 with success. 
 
 The rich man, who denies it, proudly feigns; 
 Nor knows the wise are privy to the lie. 
 Much learning shows how little mortals know ! 
 Much wealtii ; how little worldlings can enjoy; 
 At best, it babies us with endless toys, 
 And keeps us children till we drop to dust. 
 As monkies at a mirror stand amaz'd, 
 They fail to find what they so plainly see ; 
 Thus meiij in shiaing riches, see the face
 
 THB ISEIDEL nECLA-IMED. 145 
 
 Of happiness, nor know it as a shade, 
 
 jBut gaze, and touch, and peep, and peep •gain, 
 
 !And wish, and wonder it is absent still. 
 
 How ffew can rescue opulence from want ! 
 Who lives to Nature rarely can be poor ; 
 Who Uses to Fancy, never can be rich. 
 Poor is the man in debt ; the man of gold, 
 In debt to Fortune, trembles at her pow'r. 
 The man of reason smiles at her, and death. 
 O what a patrimony this I A being 
 Of such inherent {strength and majesty, 
 Not worlds posse.st can raise it : worlds destroy 'J 
 Can't injure; which holds on its glorious course, 
 When thine, O Nature! ends; too blest to moufa 
 Creation's obsequies. What treasure this ; 
 The monarch is a beggar to the man. 
 
 Immortal ! Ages past, ypt n(jthing gone I 
 3Iorn without eve I a race without a goal ; 
 Un!?hortenM by progression infuiite ! 
 Futurity for ever future ! Life 
 Beginning still, where computation ends I 
 'Tis the description of a deity I 
 'Tis the description of the meanest slave: 
 The meanest slave dares then Lorenzo scorn ? 
 The meanest slave thy sovreign glory shares. 
 Proud youth ; fastidious of the lower world 1 
 Man's lawful pride includes humility ; 
 Stoops to the lowest: is too great to find 
 Inferiors ; all immortal ! Brothers all I 
 Proprietors eternal of thy love. 
 Immortal ! What can strike the sense so strong, 
 As this the 80ul ? It thunders to the thought ;
 
 146 THECOMPLAlxNt* 
 
 Reason amazes; gratitude o'ervvhelms; 
 
 No more we slumber on the brink of fate ; 
 
 Rous'd at the sound, th' exulting soul ascend?, 
 
 And breathes her native air; an air that feeds 
 
 Ambitions high, and fans ethereal fires ; 
 
 €tuick' kindles all that is divine within us, 
 
 Ts'or leaves one loit'ring thought beneath the stars. 
 
 Has notLorenzo*s bosom caught the flame ? 
 
 Immortal ! VTere but one immortal, how 
 
 Would others envy I How would thrones adore I 
 
 Because 'tis common, is the blessing lost ? 
 
 How this ties up the bounteous hand of heaven I 
 
 O vein, vain, vain ! all else ! Eternity I 
 
 A glorious, and a needful refuge, that. 
 
 From vile imprisonment in abject views. 
 
 *TIs immortality, 'tis that alone, 
 
 Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness, 
 
 The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill. 
 
 That only, and that amply, this performs ; 
 
 Lifts us above life's pains, her joys above ; 
 
 Their terror those ; and these their lustre lose ; 
 
 Eternity depending, covers all ; 
 
 Eternity depending all achieves ; i 
 
 Sets earth at distance ; casts her into shac^es; 
 
 Blends her distinctions; abrogates her powrs; 
 
 The low, the lofty, joyous, and severe, 
 
 Fortune's dread frows and fascinating smiles, 
 
 [Make one promiscuous and neg'ected heap, 
 
 The man beneath ; if I may call him man, 
 
 Whom immortality's full force inspires. 
 
 Nothing terrestrial touches his high thought ; 
 
 Suns shine unseen, and thunders roil unhear^^
 
 TitE IXFIOEL RECLAIMED. 147 
 
 3y minds quite conscious of their high descent, 
 Their present province, and their future prize; 
 divinely darting upward ev'ry wish, 
 fVann on the wing, in glorious absence lost. 
 
 Doubt you this truth? Why labours your belief? 
 f earth's whole orb, by some due distanc'd eye 
 iVere seen at once, her tovvVing Alps would sink, 
 4.nd levell'd Atlas leave an even i^phere. 
 Thus earth, and all that earthly mindg admire, 
 
 swullow'J in Eternity's va?t round. 
 To that stupendous view, when souls awake, 
 >o large of late, so rnouatainous to man, 
 rime's toys subside ; and equal all belo\r. 
 
 Enthusiastic this? tlien all are weak, 
 3ut rank enthusiasts. To this godlike height 
 >oaie souls have soar'd ; or martyrs ne'er had bled. 
 \nd all may da, what has by man been done. 
 iVho, beaten by these sublunary storms, 
 Boundless, interminable joys can weigh, 
 Jnraptur'd, unexalled. uninilam'd? 
 liVhat slave unblest, who from to-morrow's dawa 
 Kxpecfs an empire ? he forgets his chain, 
 A.nd, thron'd in thought, his absent sceptre waves. 
 
 And what a sceptre waits us ! what a throne 1 
 ler own immense appointments to compute, 
 )r comprehend her high prerogatives, 
 n this her dark minority, how toils, 
 low vainly pants tlie human soul divine! 
 Coo great the bounty seems for earthly joy ! 
 iVhat heart but trembles at so strange a bliss ? 
 
 In spite of all the truths th" muse has sung, 
 ^a'er to be pria'd enoiiirU ! enough revolved ?
 
 148 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Are there who wrap the world so close about them, 
 They see no farther than the clouds ? and dance 
 On heedless Vanity's fantastic toe, 
 Till, stumbling at a straw, in their career, 
 Headlong they plunge, where end both dance and 
 
 song? 
 Are there, Lorenzo ? Is it possible? 
 Are there on earth (let me not call them men) 
 "Who lodge a soul immortal in their breasts ; 
 Unconscious as the mountain of its ore ; 
 Or rock, of its inestimable gem ? 
 "When rocks shall melt, and mountains vanish, these 
 Shall know their treasure, treasure, then, no more. 1 
 
 Are there (still more amazing I) who resist 
 The rising thought ? who smother, in its birth, 
 The glorious truth? who struggle to be brutes f 
 Who thro' this bosom barrier burst their way ; 
 And, with revers'd ambition, strive to sink ? 
 "Who labour downwards thro' th' opposing pow'ri. 
 Of instinct, reason, and the world against them, 
 To dismal hopes, and shelter in the shock 
 Of endless Night ! Night darker than the grave'* I 
 Who fight the proofs of immortality ! 
 "With horrid zeal, and execrable arts, 
 "Work all their engines, level their black fires, 
 To blot from man this attribute divine, I 
 
 (Than vital blood far dearer to the wise) 
 Blasphemers, and rank atheists to themselves? 
 
 To contradict them, see all nature rise : 
 "What object, what event, the moon beneath, 
 Eut argues, or endears, an after-?cene I 
 To reason proves, or weds it to Desiril
 
 THE tNPlDEI. RECLAUtBO. 149 
 
 A.11 things proclaim It needful ; some advance 
 
 3r)e precious step beyond, and prove it sure. 
 
 A. thousaod arguments swarm round my pen, 
 
 From heav'n, and earth, and man. Indulge a few, 
 
 By nature, as her common habit, worn ; 
 
 ?o pressing Providence a truth to tench, 
 
 Which truth untaught, all other truths were vain. 
 
 Thoi' ! whose all-providential eye surveys, 
 tVhose hand directs, whose Spirit fills and warms 
 Creation, and holds empire far beyond ! 
 Eternity's Inhabitant august I 
 Df two eternities amazing Lord I 
 Dne past, ere man's, or angel's had begun : 
 Aid ! while I rescue from the foe's assault 
 rhy glorious immortality in man : 
 ^. theme for ever, and for al), of weight, 
 3fraomeut infinite I but relish'd most 
 8y those v,ho love thee most, who most adore- 
 
 Nature, thf daughter, ever-changing birth 
 3f thee the great Immutable, toman 
 peaks wisdom ; is his oracle supreme ; 
 A.nd he who most consults her, is most wise. 
 Liorenzo, to this heav'uly Delphos hagte ; 
 ind come back all immortal ; all divine; 
 Look Nature thro', His revolution all ; 
 K]] change, no ieath. Day follows nidit, and night 
 The dying day; stars rise, and s«t, and rise; 
 3arth takes th' example. See the Summer gay, 
 IVith her green chaplet, and ambrosial flowVs, 
 )roops into pallid Autumn : Winter grey, 
 lorrid with frost, aud turbulent with storu), 
 31ows autuan and his golden fruit away ; 
 
 ei^.
 
 150 ' THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 Then melts into the Spring : Soft Spring, withbreatk 
 Favonian, from warm chambers of the south, 
 Recalls the first. All, to reflourish, fades; 
 As in aAvheel, all sink?, to re-ascend, 
 Emblems of 3Ian, who passes, not expires. 
 
 With thi? minute ni>tJnction, emblems just, 
 Kature revolves, but oian advances; both 
 Eternal, that a circle, this a line ; 
 That ii;ravitate«, this soars. Th' aspiring soul 
 Ardent and tremulous, like flame, ascends ; 
 Zeal, and humility, ker wings to Heav'n. 
 The world of matter, with its variou!? forms, 
 All dies into new life. Life born from Death 
 Rolls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll. 
 No single atom, once in being, lost, 
 "With change of couiisel charges the Most Higkc 
 
 What hence infers Lorenzo ? Can it be ? 
 Matter immortal ? And shall spirit die ? 
 Above the nobler, shall less noble rise? 
 Shall man alone, for whom all else revives, 
 No resurrection know? Shall man alone. 
 Imperial man ! be sown in barren ground. 
 Less privileged than grain, on which he feeds? 
 Is man, in whom alone is pow'r to prize 
 The bliss of being, or with previous paia 
 Deplore its period, by the spleen of Fate, 
 Severely dooni'd Death's single unredeem'd ? 
 
 If Nature's revolution speaks aloud. 
 In her gradation, bear her louder stilJ. 
 Look Nature thro', 'tis neat gradation all. 
 By what minute degrees her scale ascends ! 
 Each middle Nature join'd at each extreme,
 
 THE INFIDEL EECLA.IMED. 151 
 
 To that above it join'd, to that beneath, 
 Parts, into parts reciprocally shot. 
 Abhor divorce = "VViiat love of union reigns ! 
 Here, dormant matter waits a call to life ; 
 Half-life, half-death, join there; here, life and 5ense ; 
 There, sense from reason steals a glimm'ring ray ; 
 Reason shines eut in man. But how preserved 
 The chain unbroken upward to the realms 
 Of incorporeal life ? those realms of bliss 
 "Where death had no dominion ? Grant a make 
 Half-mortal, half-immortal; earthly, part; 
 And part ethereal ; grant the soul of man 
 Eternal ; or in man the series ends. 
 Wide yawns the gap ; connection is no roore ; 
 CheckM Reason halts ; her next step wants support; 
 f^triving to climb, she tumbles from her scheme ; 
 A scheme Analogy pronouac'd so true; 
 Analogy, man's surest guide below. 
 
 Thus far, all Nature calls on thy belief. 
 And will Lorenzo, careless of the call. 
 False attestation on all nature charge. 
 Rather than violate his league with Death ? 
 Renounce his reason, rather than renounce 
 The dust belov'd, and run the risk of Heav'n? 
 O what indignity to deathJc?s sou!? I 
 "What treason to the majesty of man! 
 Of man immortal I Hear the lofty style : 
 •' If so decreed, th' Almighty Will be done. 
 " Liel earth dissolve, yon ponderous orbs descend, 
 
 A.nd grind us into dust. The soul is safe ; 
 * The man emerges; mounts above the wreck, 
 ' As tow'f Jng flame from Nature's fun'ral pyre
 
 152 tHE COMPLAINT. 
 
 " O'er devastation, as a gainer smiles j 
 
 ** His charter, his inviolable rights, 
 
 •' AVeli pleas'd to learn from Thunder's impotence, 
 
 " Death's pointless darts^and Hell's defeated storms.'* 
 
 But these chimeras touch not thee, Lorenzo I 
 The glories of the world, thy sev'nfold shield. 
 Other ambition than of crowns in air, 
 And superlunary felicities. 
 Thy bosom warm. I'll cool it, if I can ; 
 And turn those glories that enchant, against ihee. 
 What ties thee to this life, proclaims the next. 
 If wise, the cause that wounds thee is thy cure. 
 
 Come, my ambitious ! let us mount together 
 (To mount Lorenzo never can refuse ;) 
 And from the clouds, where pride delights to dwelF^ 
 Look down on earth — Whatseest thou? Wond'rous 
 
 things ! 
 Terrestrial wonders, that eclipse the skies. 
 What lengths of labour'd lands ! what loaded seas! 
 Loaded, by man, for pleasure, wealth, or war I 
 Seas, winds, and planets, into service brought, 
 His art acknowledge, and promote his ends. 
 Nor can th' eternal rocks his will withstand ; I ^' 
 
 What levell'd mountains; And what lifted vales? ^ 
 O'er vales and mountain? sumptuous cities swell, 
 And gild our landscape with their glitt'ring spire! 
 Some mid the wond'ring waves majestic rise ; 
 And Neptune holds a mirror to then- charms. 
 Far greater still I (v»-hat cannot mortal might ?) 
 See wide dominions ravish'd from the deep ; 
 Tlie narrow'd deep with indignation foams. j 
 
 Or southward turn, to delicate, and grand j 
 The finer arts there ripen in the sun.
 
 THE IFIDEL RECLAIMED. 153 
 
 How the taU temples, as to meet their gods, 
 Ascend the skies ! the proud triumphal arch 
 Shews us half Heav'n beneath its ample bend. 
 High thro' mid air, here, streams are taught to flow r 
 Whole rivers, there, laid by in basons, sleep. 
 Here, plains turn ocean's; there, vast oceans join 
 Thro' kingdoms channelM deep from shore to shore, 
 And chang'd Creation takes its face from man. 
 Beats thy brave breast for formidable scenes. 
 Where fame and empire wait upon the sword ? 
 See fields in blood ; hear naval thunders rise ; 
 Britannia's voice! that awes the world to peace.. 
 How yon enormous mole projecting breaks 
 The mid-sea, furious waves I their roar anaidat. 
 Out-speaks the Deity, and says, " O main! 
 " Thus far, not farther: new restraints obey." 
 Earth's disembowe I'd 1 measur'd are the skies! 
 Stars are detected in their deep recess ! 
 Creation widens! vanquish'd nature yields! 
 Her secrets are extorted ! Art prevails I 
 What monument of genius, spirit, pow'r! 
 
 And now, Lorenzo, rapturM at this scene, 
 Whose glories render Heav'n superfluous I say, 
 Whose footsteps these ? Immortals have been hert. 
 Could less than souls immortal this have done ? 
 Earth's cover'd o'er with proofs of souls immortal , 
 And proofs of immortality forgot. 
 
 To flatter thy grand foible, I confess, 
 These are Ambition's works : and these arc great; 
 But this the least immortal souls can do : 
 Transcend them all. — But what can these transcend? 
 Post ask me, what ?— One sigh fur the dJJtreft. 
 
 Vol. r. H
 
 154 THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED. 
 
 What then for infidels? A deeper sigh. 
 
 'Tis raoral grandeur makes the mighty man : 
 
 How little they, who think aught great below ! 
 
 All our ambitions Death defeats, but one ; 
 
 And that it crowns. — Here cease we : But, ere long, 
 
 >Iore pow'rful proof shall take the field against thee, 
 
 Stronger than Death, and smiling at the torab- 
 
 SKD 0¥ VOL T 

 
 i
 
 i|i!i!pifi'flf''| 
 
 B 000 004 671 4 
 
 I
 
 i rublished, and for Sale by 
 
 % RICH A.RI> SCOTT, 
 
 % At his Boole and Station&i-y Store, 2TG Pcaf 
 5TlieC>r ■ .f Consideration, or a. tlj 
 
 V vvhei' lure, usefuUness and absj 
 
 V ce:,S!iy oi con: ulero*.Ion in order to a t 
 ■'.• rious and religious lite is laid open, by 
 
 V IIorneGk, :D. D. 
 
 t Cii11«!rcjiorthe Abbey, with plates, o vo\ 
 t Tie Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying, 
 t c.-e descri led die means and instrument 
 Ji paring ourselves and others respective 
 J blessed death, by Jereniiiih Taylor, 
 ^ Retlcctions (or every t!ay in the year, on.tl 
 ^ of God, and of his providence Ihroughou 
 -^- Jure, by C. G. Stnrm, . 2- vol 
 
 fj A. i.ierious Call, to a devou' and holy life, 
 X U> the statfl and conditiTJ of uil orders 
 V' tians, by William Iraw, 
 
 X A .'-prinj; Day, or Coiiteaiphitions on sev(| 
 't ^ii-rcnoes, which naturally strike the eye| 
 • leii^^htful seasoti '■ ■ .:s Fisher, 
 
 le iS'on-Sndi Fr< '■- njeridian sple 
 
 the singular actions u; iiruictilied christi 
 the Rev. William Seeker, 
 dgment and Mercy for afilictcd souls, c| 
 -dtions, soliloquies and prayer?, by j 
 'Anarles, ... 
 \ 'j j.uiioirs of the Life ami iMinistry of the !a| 
 I ,• i'homa,^ Spencer of Liverpool, 
 : i /.he Family Instructor, in three parts, relat] 
 ' !fi * 1. . To Parents and Children, 
 ; .-- ,. To Masters and Servautd, 
 ' -'. .d. To Huhbandsaad Wives, 
 ;>;, by PDodridt.e, D. D. .* . 
 
 ; -:|J A Practical Discourse concerning death, 
 'h liamSiieriock, D. Xi. 
 \ j!C T^he Cristian Remen.brance.r, or short reJj 
 ;-f x\v'u\ the Faith, Life and Conduct oCj 
 ! ''i Chrisijan. • • 
 
 '<^.k¥S:-:f!^^\^^'A-^\i:^\ry:--.\ 
 
 •;;c-^:f';:f-^:^-):f^:r^^"1 
 
 9 «!»•>« c>g«5 S£/ 
 
 «).e.o.<c.c«.«^;