Thought wanders up and down, furpriz'd, aghast,

And wond'ring at her own: How Reafon reels? O what a Miracle to man is Man,

Triumphantly diftrefs'd? what Joy, what Dread? Alternately tranfported 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.

'Tis past Conjecture; all things rise in proof: While o'er my limbs Sleep's foft dominion spread, What, tho' my Soul phantaftic Measures trod, O'er Fairy Fields; or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathlefs Woods: or down the craggy Steep 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 ceaseless Flight, tho' devious, speaks her Nature

Of fubtler Effence thar the trodden Clod;

Active,

Active, aërial, tow'ring, unconfin'd,

Unfetter'd with her grofs Companion's fall:

Ev'n filent Night proclaims my Soul immortal :
Ev'n filent Night proclaims eternal Day :
For human weal, Heaven husbands all events,
Dull fleep inftructs, nor fport vain Dreams in vain.

Why then their Lofs deplore, that are not lost? Why wanders wretched Thought their tombs around, In infidel Diftrefs? Are Angels there?

Slumbers, rak'd

up in duft, Etherial fire?

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

On me, more juftly number'd with the Dead;
This is the Defart, this the Solitude:

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 Shades:

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 Vestibule,
Life's Theater as yet is fhut, and Death,
Strong Death alone can heave the maffy Bar,
This grofs impediment of Clay remove,
And make us Embryos of Existence free.
From real life, but little more remote
Is He, not yet a candidate for Light,
The future Embryo, flumbering in his Sire.
Embryos we must be, till we burft the Shell,
Yon ambient, azure shell, and spring to Life,
The life of Gods: O Tranfport! and of Man.

Yet

Yet man, fool man! here burys all his Thoughts; Inters celeftial Hopes without one Sigh:

Prisoner of Earth, and pent beneath the Moon,
Here pinions all his Wifhes; wing'd by Heaven
To fly at Infinite; and reach it there,
Where Seraphs gather Immortality,

On life's fair Tree, faft by the throne of God:
What golden Joys ambrofial cluft'ring glow,
In His full beam, and ripen for the Just,
Where momentary Ages are no more?
WhereTime, and Pain,and Chance, and Death expire?
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,
Wasting 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.

Where falls this Cenfure? It o'erwhelms myself. How was my Heart encrufted by the World? O how felf-fetter'd was my groveling Soul? How, like a Worm, was I wrapt round and round In filken thought, which reptile Fancy spun, Till darken'd Reafon lay quite clouded o'er With foft conceit of endless Comfort here, Nor yet put forth her Wings to reach the skies?

Night-visions may befriend, (as fung above)
Our waking Dreams are fatal: How I dreamt
Of things Impoffible? (could Sleep do more?)
Of Joys perpetual in perpetual Change?
Of stable Pleasures on the toffing Wave?
Eternal Sunshine in the Storms of life?
How richly were my noon-tide Trances hung