XXIII.

DEATH.

HICH is the happiest death to die?
"Oh!" faid one, "if I might choose,
Long at the gate of blifs would I lie;
And feast my fpirit, ere it fly,

With bright celeftial views.

Mine were a lingering death without pain,
A death which all might love to fee;

And mark how bright and sweet would be
The victory I should gain.

"Fain would I catch a hymn of love
From the angels' harps which ring above;
And fing it, as my parting breath
Quivered and expired in death;
So that those on earth might hear
The harp-notes of another sphere,
And mark, when nature faints and dies,
What springs of heavenly life arise,
And gather, from the death they view,
A ray of hope to light them through,
When they should be departing too."

"No," said another; "fo not I;
Sudden as thought is the death I would die ;
I would fuddenly lay my fhackles by,
Nor bear a single pang at parting,
Nor fee the tear of forrow starting;

Nor hear the quivering lips that bless me,
Nor feel the hands of love that press me,
Nor the frame with mortal terror shaking,
Nor the heart where love's soft bands are breaking.

"So would I die

All blifs without a pang to cloud it,
All joy without a pain to shroud it;
Not flain, but caught up, as it were,
To meet my Saviour in the air;
So would I die.

Oh! how bright were the realms of light,
Bursting at once upon my fight;

Even fo, I long to go,

These parting hours how fad and flow!"

His voice grew weak, and fixed was his eye,
As if gazing on vifions of ecftafy;

The hue of his cheek and lips decayed,
Around his mouth a sweet smile played —
They looked- he was dead!

His fpirit had fled:

Painless and fwift as his own defire,

The foul undreffed from her mortal vest,
And stepped in her car of heavenly fire;
And proved how bright

Were the realms of light,

Bursting at once upon the fight!

EDMESTON.

H

XXIV.

MAN.

OW poor, how rich, how abject, how auguft,

How complicate, how wonderful is

man!

How paffing wonder He who made

him fuch!

Who centred in our make fuch ftrange extremes !
From different natures, marvellously mixed,
Connexion exquifite of distant worlds !
Distinguished link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, fullied and abforbed!
Though fullied and difhonoured, ftill divine!
Dim miniature of greatnefs abfolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of duft!
Helpless immortal! infect infinite!
A worm! a god!—I tremble at myself,
And in myself am loft. At home, a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, furprised, aghaft,
And wondering at her own. How reafon reels!
O what a miracle to man is man!

Triumphantly diftreffed! what joy! what dread!
Alternately transported and alarmed!

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.

YOUNG.

L

XXV.

WOMAN.

THOU! by Heaven ordained to be The miftrefs of man's destinyFrom whofe fond lips one gentle figh, One look from whofe approving eye, Can raise or bend him to thy will, To virtue's nobleft heights, or worst extremes of ill:

And let not paffion's lawless tide
Thy better purpose turn afide;

For woe awaits the lucklefs hour

That leads to man's annoy thy Heaven-entrufted

power.

Woman! 'tis thine to cleanse his heart

From every grofs unholy part;

Thine in domeftic folitude

To teach him to be wife and good.

His pattern guide and friend to be,

To give him back the Heaven he forfeited for thee.

XXVI.

WOMAN.

JONOUR to women! entwining and braiding

Life's garland with rofes for ever unfading,

In the veil of the graces all modeftly kneeling,

Love's band with sweet spells have they wreathed, have

they bleffed,

And tending with hands ever pure have careffed

The flame of each holy, each beautiful feeling.

Ever truth's bright bounds outrages
Man, and his wild fpirit ftrives;
Ever with each thought that changes,
As the ftorm of paffion drives;
With heart appeased, contented never,
Grafps he at the future's gleam;
Beyond the stars pursuing ever

The restless phantom of his dream.

But the glances of women, enchantingly glowing, Their light woos the fugitive back, ever throwing A link round the prefent, that binds like a spellIn the meek cottage home of the mother prefiding, All graces, all gentleness, round them abiding,

As nature's true daughters, how fweetly they dwell!