A robe, of light condens'd, around him shone,
And his loins glitter'd with a starry zone :
And while the liftening winds lay hush'd to hear,
Thus spoke the vision, amiably severe !
Vain man! would'st thou escape the common lot,
To live, to suffer, die, and be forgot?
Look back on ancient times, primæval years,
All, all are past! a mighty void appears!
Heroes, and kings, thofe Gods of earth, whose fame
Aw'd half the nations, now are but a name!
The great in arts, or arms; the wife, the juft,
Mix with the meaneft in congenial duft!
Ev'n Saints and Prophets the fame paths have trod,
Ambaffadors of heaven, and friends of God!
And thou, would'st thou the general fentence fly?
Mofes is dead! thy Saviour deign'd to die!
Mortal, in all thy acts regard thy end;
Live well, the time thou liv'ft, and death's thy friend:
Then curb each rebel thought against the sky,
And die refign'd, O! Man ordain'd to die!
He added not, but spread his wings in flight,
And vanish'd instant in a blaze of light.
Abash'd, afham'd, I cry, Eternal Power,
I yield! I wait refign'd the appointed hour!
Man, foolish man, no more thy foul deceive!
To die, is but the fureft way to live:
When age we afk, we afk it in our wrong,
And pray our time of fuffering may be long;
The nauseous draught, and dregs of life to drain,
And feel infirmity, and length of pain!
What art thou life, that we fhould court thy ftay?
A breath, one fingle gafp muft puff away!
A short-liv'd flower, that with the day must fade !
A fleeting vapour, and an empty shade!
A ftream, that filently but swiftly glides
To meet eternity's immeafur'd tides !
A being, loft alike by pain or joy!
A fly can kill it, or a worm destroy !
Impair'd by labour, and by ease undone,
Commenc'd in tears, and ended in a groan!
Ev'n while I write, the tranfient Now is past,
And death more near this fentence, than the last!
As fome weak Ifthmus feas from feas divides,
Beat by rude waves, and sap'd by rushing tides,
Torn from its bafe, no more their fury bears,
At once they clofe, at once it difappears :
Such, fuch is life! the mark of mifery plac'd
Between two worlds, the future and the past;
To time, to ficknefs, and to death a prey,
It finks, the frail poffeffion of a day!
As fome fond boy, in sport, along the shore
Builds from the fands a fabric of an hour;
Proud of his fpacious walls, and stately rooms,
He ftyles the mimic cells imperial domes:
The little monarch fwells with fancy'd fway:
Till fome wind rifing puffs the dome away;
So the poor reptile, man! an heir of woe,
The lord of earth and ocean, fwells in fhow;
He plants, he builds, aloft the walls arife!
The noble plan he finishes, and-dies.
Swept from the earth, he shares the common fate,
His fole diftinction now, to rot in state!
Thus bufy to no end till out of breath,
Tir'd we lie down, and close up all in death.
Then bleft the man whom gracious heaven has led Through life's blind mazes to th' immortal dead! Who fafely landed on the blissful fhore, Nor human folly feels nor frailty more! O! Death, thou cure of all our idle ftrife! End of the gay, or ferious farce of life! Wish of the juft, and refuge of th' oppreft! Where poverty, and where ev'n kings find rest! Safe, from the frowns of power! calm, thoughtful
And the rude infults of the fcornful great!
The grave is facred! wrath and malice dread
To violate its peace, and wrong the dead :
But, life, thy name is woe! to death we fly
To grow immortal!-into life we die!
Then wifely heaven in filence has confin'd
The happier dead, left none should stay behind.
What though the path be dark that must be trod,
Though man be blotted from the works of God,
Though the four winds his scatter'd atoms bear
To earth's extremes through all th' expanse of air♣
Yet bursting glorious from the filent clay,
He mounts triumphant to eternal day,
So when the fun rolls down th' ethereal plain, Extinct his fplendors in the whelming main :
A tranfient night earth, air, and heaven invades,
Eclips'd in horrors of furrounding fhades :
But foon, emerging with a fresher ray,
He ftarts exultant, and renews the day.
MY eyes with floods of tears o'erflow,
My bofom heaves with conftant woe;
Thofe eyes, which thy unkindness fwells,
That bofom, where thy image dwells!
How could I hope fo weak a flame
Could ever warm that matchlefs dame,
When none Elyfium muft behold,
Without a radiant bough of gold?
"Tis hers, in spheres to shine,
At diftance to admire, is mine:
Doom'd, like th' enamour'd* youth, to groan
For a new goddefs form'd of ftone.
While thus I fpoke, Love's gentle power
Defcended from th' æthereal bower;
A quiver at his shoulder hung,
A fhaft he grafp'd, and bow unftrung.
All nature own'd the genial God,
And the fpring flourish'd where he trod :
My heart, no ftranger to the guest,
Flutter'd, and labour'd in my breaft;
Polydorus, who pined to death for the love of a beautiful ftatue.
When, with a smile that kindles joy
Ev'n in the Gods, began the boy :
How vain these tears! is man decreed,
By being abject, to fucceed?
Hop'st thou by meagre looks to move?
Are women frighten'd into love?
He moft prevails who nobly dares ;
In love an hero, as in wars:
Ev'n Venus may be known to yield,
But 'tis when Mars difputes the field :
Sent from a daring hand my dart
Strikes deep into the fair-one's heart:
To winds and waves thy cares bequeath,
A figh is but a waste of breath:
What though gay youth, and every grace
That beauty boasts, adorn her face,
Yet Goddeffes have deign'd to wed,
And take a mortal to their bed:
And heaven, when gifts of incenfe rife,
Accepts it, though it cloud their skies.
Mark! how this marygold conceals
Her beauty, and her bofom veils,
How from the dull embrace fhe flies
Of Phoebus, when his beams arife;
But when his glory he displays,
And darts around his fiercer rays,
Her charms fhe opens, and receives
The vigorous God into her leaves.
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