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 frown? most fure;
And in its favours formidable too:
Its favours 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 confequence,
O'er our scann'd conduct give a jealous eye,
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our defert;
Awe Nuture's tumult, and chastise her joys,
Lest while we clasp, we kill them; nay invert,
To worse than
Jimple
fimple misery, their charms:
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bosom-friendships to resentment four'd,
With rage envenom'd rise against our peace..
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys, but joys that never can expire :
Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death.

Mine dy'd with thee, PHILANDER! thy last sigh
Difssolv'd the charm; the disenchanted earth
Loft all her luftre. Where, her glittering towers?
Her golden mountains, where? all darken'd down
To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears:
The great magician's dead! Thou poor, pale piece
Of outcast earth, in darkness! what a change
From yesterday! thy darling hope so near,
(Long-labour'd prize!) how Ambition flush'd
Thy glowing cheek! Ambition truly great,
Of virtuous praise: Death's fubtle feed within,
(Sly, treacherous miner!), working in the dark,.
Smil'd at thy well-concerted scheme, and beckon'd
The worm to riot on that rose so red,
Unfaded ere it fell; one moment's prey!

Man's forefight is conditionally wife;.
LORENZO! wisdom into folly turns
Oft, the first instant its idea fair

To labouring thought is born. How dim our eyes!!
The present moment terminates our fight;
Clouds, thick as those on doomsday, drown the next..
We penetrate, we prophefy in vain.
Time is dealt out by patticles; and each,
Ere mingled with the streaming fands of life,
By Fate's inviolable oath is fivorn
Deep filence, "Where eternity begins."

By Nature's law, what may be, may be now;
There's, no prerogative in human hours."
In human hearts what bolder thought can rife
Than man's prefumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverie
Is sure to none and yet on this perhaps,
This peradventure, infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adament we build
Our mountain-hopes, spin out eternal schemes,
As we the fatal fifters cou'd out-fpin,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.

Not even PHILANDER had bespoke his shroud; Nor had he caufe: a warning was deny'd. How many fall as fudden, not as fafe; As fudden, though for years admonith'd, home? Of human ills the last extreme beware, Beware, LORENZO! a flow-fudden death. How dreadful that deliberate surprise? Be wife to-day, 'tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead; Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life; 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 concerns of an eternal scene. If not fo frequent, would not this be ftrange? That 'tis so frequent, this is ftranger still.

Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, That all men are about to live, For ever on the brink of being born. All pay themselves the compliment to think They, one day, shall not drivel; and their pride On this reverfion takes up ready praife; At least, their own; their future selves applauds How excellent that life they ne'er will lead? Time lodg'd in their own hands is Folly's vail;

That lodg'd in Fate's, to wisdom they confign;
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 many

And that thro' every stage: when young, indeed,
In full content, we sometimes nobly reft,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only with,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wife:
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pulhes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves; and re-resolves: then dies the fame.

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal: All men think all men mortal, but themselves; Themselves, when fome 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 fear the sky retains; The parted wave no furrow from the keel; So dies in human hearts the thought of death: Even with the tender tear which Nature theds O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. Can I forget PHILANDER? That were strange; O my full heart!-but should I give it vent, The longest night, though longer far, would fail, And the lark listen to my midnight-fong.

The sprightly lark's thrill matin wakes the morn; Grief's sharpest thorn hard-pressing on my breast, I ftrive, with wakeful melody, to chear The fullen gloom, sweet Philomel! like thee, And call the stars to listen: every star Is deaf to mine, enamour'd of thy lay. Yet be not vain; there are who thine excel, And charm through diftant ages: wrapt in shade, Prifoner of darkness! to the filent hours, How often I repeat their rage divine, To lull my griefs, and steal my heart from we! I roll their raptures, but not catch their flame.

Dark, though not blind, like thee, Maonides!
Or Milton! thee; ah, could I reach your strain!
Or his, who made Mæonides our own..
Man too he sung: immortal man I fing;
Oft bursts my fong beyond the bounds of life;
What, now, but immortality can please?
O had he press'd his theme, pursu'd 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 bless'd mankind, and rescu'd me!!

NIGHT THE SECOND.

ON

TIME DEATH, FRIENDSHIP.

HUMBLY INSCRIBED

To the RIGHT HONOURABLE

The Earl of WILMINGTON.

B