At random drove, her helm of reason loft.
Though now reftor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) feverer for severe.

The Day too fhort for my distress; and Night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,

Is funthine to the colour of my fate.

Night, fable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now ftretches forth
Her leaden fceptre o'er a flumbering world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds;
Creation fleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life ftood still, and nature made a pause;

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An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

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And let her prophecy be foon fulfill'd;

Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.

Silence and Darkness! folemn fifters! twins

From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought!
To Reafon, and on Reafon build Refolve,
(That column of true majefty in man)
Affift me: I will thank you in the grave;

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The grave, your kingdom: There this frame shall fall A victim facred to your dreary fhrine.

But what are ye?—

Thou, who didst put to flight

Primeval Silence, when the morning ftars,

Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball;

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O Thou, whose word from folid darkness ftruck
That fpark, the fun; strike wisdom from my foul; 40

My

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

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

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The bell ftrikes One. We take no note of time 55

But from its lofs.

Is wife in man.

To give it then a tongue,

As if an angel spoke,

I feel the folemn found. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours:

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

It is the fignal that demands dispatch:

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

Poor penfioner on the bounties of an hour?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how auguft,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How paffing wonder He, who made him fuch!

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Who

Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From different natures marvelously mixt,
Connexion exquifite of diftant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in Being's endless chain!
Midway from Nothing to the Deity!
-A beam ethereal, fully'd, and abforpt!
Though fully'd and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! infect infinite!

A worm! a god !—I tremble at myself,
And in myself am loft! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surpriz'd, aghaft,
And wondering at her own: How reafon reels!
JO what a miracle to man is man,

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

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

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Active, aërial, towering, unconfin'd,
Unfetter'd with her grofs companions fall.
Ev'n filent night proclaims my foul immortal:
Ev'n filent night proclaims eternal day.

For human weal, heaven husbands all events;

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Dull fleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.
Why then their lofs deplore, that are not loft?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,
In infidel distress? Are Angels there?
Slumbers, rak'd up in duft, ethereal fire ?

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

On me, more justly number'd with the dead.
This is the defart, this the folitude:
How populous, how vital, is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,
The vale funereal, the fad cypress gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty fhades!
All, all on earth, is Shadow, all beyond
Is Subftance; the reverfe is folly's creed :
How folid all, where change fhall be no more!
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,

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

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

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

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

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

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

To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

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

How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round Alken thought, which reptile Fancy spun, darken'd Reafon lay quite clouded o'er

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