PHILANDER! he severely frown'd on thee.
"No warning giv'n! Unceremonious fate!
"A sudden rush from life's meridian joy!
"A wrench from all we love! from all we are!
"A restless bed of pain! a plunge opaque

Beyond conjecture! feeble Nature's dread! Strong Reason's shudder at the dark unknown! "A sun extinguish'd! a just opening grave! "And oh the last, last, what? (can words express! Thought reach it?) the last-Silence of a friend!” Where are those horrors, that amazement, where, This hideous group of ills, which singly shock, Demand from man?--I thought him man till now.

'Through nature's wreck, thro' vanquish'd agonies, (Like the stars struggling thro' this midnight gloom) What gleams of joy? what more than human peace? 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 fix'd to man?
His God sustains him in his final hour!
His final hour brings glory to his God!

Man's glory heav'n vouchsafes to call her own.
We gaze, we weep; mixt tears of grief and joy!
Amazement strikes! devotion bursts to flame!
Christians adore, and Infidels believe!

As some tall tow'r, or lofty mountain's brow,
Detains the sun, illustrious from its height;
While rising vapours, and descending shades,
With damps, and darkness, drown the spacious vale,
Undampt by doubt, undarken'd by despair,

PHILANDER, thus, augustly rears his head,
At that black hour, which gen'ral horror sheds
On the low level of the inglorious throng:

Sweet Peace, and heav'nly Hope, and humble Joy
Divinely beam on his exalted soul;

Destruction gild, and crown him for the skies,
With incommunicable lustre, bright.

THE

COMPLAINT.

NIGHT III.

NARCISSA.

HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS of P.

Ignoscenda quidem, scivent si ignoscere munes. Virg.

FROM dreams, where thought in fancy's maze runs

mad,

To reason, that heav'n-lighted lamp in man,
Once more I wake; and at the destin'd hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn,

I keep my assignation with my woe.

O! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought,
Lost to the noble sallies of the soul!
Who think it solitude, to be alone.

Communion sweet! communion large and high!
Our reason, guardian angel, and our god!
Then nearest these, when others most remote;

And all, ere long, shall be remote, but these.
How dreadful, then, to meet them all alone,
A stranger; unacknowledged! unapprov'd!
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! dangerous the desire.
Take PHOEBUS to yourselves, ye basking bards!
Inebriate at fair fortune's fountain-head;

And reeling through the wilderness of joy:
Where Sense runs savage, broke from Reason's chain,
And sings false peace, till smother'd 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 impiore;
Now first implor'd in succour to the Muse.

Thou, who didst lately borrow CYNTHIA'S form,'
And modestly forego thine own! O thou,
Who didst thyself, at midnight hours, inspire!
Say, why not CYNTHIA patroness of song?
As thou her crescent, she thy character
Assumes; still more a goddess by the change.
Are there demurring wits, who dare dispute
This revolution in the world inspir'd?
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 harmonious, nightly leads
The mazy dance, and hears their matchless strain,
A strain for gods, deny'd to mortal ear.

Transmit it heard, thou silver queen of heav'n! What title, or what name, endears thee most? CYNTHIA! CYLLENE! PHOEBE!Or dost hear With higher gust, fair P- D of the skies!

At the duke of Norfolk's masquerade.

E

Is that the soft enchantment calls thee down,
More pow'rful than of old Circean charm?
Come; but from heav'nly banquets with thee bring
The soul of song, and whisper in mine ear
The theft divine; or in propitious dreams

(For dreams are thine) transfuse it through 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 theme,
Soft, modest, melancholy, female fair!

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.
NARCISSA follows, ere his tomb is clos'd.
Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes;

They love a train, they tread each other's heel;
Her death 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,
Sorrow he more than causes, he confounds;
for human sighs his rival strokes contend,
And make distress, distraction. O PHILANDER!
What was thy fate? A double fate to me;
Portent, and pain! a menace, and blow!
Like the black raven hov'ring o'er my peace,
Not less a bird of omen than of prey.
It call'd NARCISSA long before her hour;
It call'd her tender soul, by break of bliss,
From the first blossom, from the buds of joy;
Those few. Our noxious fate unblasted leaves
In this inclement clime of human life.

Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!