Communion Sweet! Communion large, and High!
Our Reafon; Guardian Angel; and our God!
Then nearest Thefe, when Others most Remote;
And All, ere long, fhall be remote, but These.
How dreadful, Then, to meet them all alone,
A Stranger! Unacknowledg'd! Unapprov❜d!
Now woo them; wed them; bind them to thy
To win thy Wish, Creation has no more.
Or if we wish a Fourth, it is a Friend ;
But Friends, how mortal? Dangerous the Defire.
Alone indeed, the Banisht from Himself,
By Day's Intrufions loud, and rude Affaults,
A tide of Tumult, and a Storm of Tongues.
Take Phœbus to yourselves, ye basking Bards!
Inebriate at fair Fortune's fountain-head;
And reeling thro' the wilderness of Joy;
Where Sense runs favage, broke from Reason's chain, And fings 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 foft-ey'd Sifter pay my Court,
(Endymion's Rival!) and her aid implore;
Now first implor'd in fuccour to the Muse.
Thou, who didft lately borrow * Cynthia's form, Aud modeftly foregoe thine Own! O Thou
Who didst thyself, at midnight Hours inspire !
Say, why not Cynthia Patronefs of Song?
As Thou her, Crefcent, the thy Character
Affumes; ftill more a Goddess by the Change.
Are there demuring Wits, who dare dispute
This Revolution in the World infpir'd?
Ye Train Pierian! to the Lunar Sphere,
In filent Hour, address your ardent Call
For aid Immortal; Lefs her Brother's Right.
*At the Duke of Norfolk's Mafquerade.
She, with there Spheres Harmonious, nightly leads
The mazy Dance, and hears their matchlefs Strain, A Strain for Gods.! Deny'd to mortal Ear!
Tranfinit it heard, Thou Silver Queen of Heaven!
What Title, or what Name endears thee more?
Cynthia! Cilene! Phabe !----or doft hear
With higher guft, fair P-----d of the Skies?
Is that the foft Enchantment calls thee down,
More powerful than of old Circean charm?
Come; but from Heavenly 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 thro' the breast
Of thy first Votary ;----But not thy last Laft;
If, like thy Namefake, Thou art ever Kind.
And Kind Thou wilt be; Kind on fuch a Theme; A Theme so like thee, a quite Lunar Theme, Soft, modeft, melancholy, female, fair!
A Theme that rofe all-pale, and told my foul,
'Twas Night; on her fond Hopes perpetual Night!
A Night which struck a damp, a deadlier damp,
Than that which fmote me from Philander's tomb.
Narciffa follows, e'er His tomb is clos'd.
Woes cluster; rare are folitary 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, e'er It falls. So frequent Death,
Sorrow, He more than causes, He confounds;
For human Sighs his rival Strokes contend,
And make Distress, Distraction. Oh Philander!
What was thy Fate? A double Fate to me;
Portent, and Pain! a Menace, and a Blow!
Like the black Raven hov'ring o'er my Peace,
Not lefs 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 Bloffom, from the Buds of Joy;
Thofe Few, our noxious Fate unblafted leaves,
In this inclement Clime of human life.
Sweet Harmonist! and Beautiful as fweet!
And young as beautiful! and Soft as young!
And Gay as foft! and Innocent as gay!
And Happy (if aught Happy here) as Good!
For Fortune fond had built her neft on High:
Like Birds quite exquifite of note and Plume,
Transfixt by Fate (who loves a lofty Mark)
How from the Summit of the Grove she fell,
And left it Unharmonious? All its Charm
Extinguisht in the Wonders of her Song!
Her Song ftill vibrates in my ravisht Ear,
Still melting There, and with voluptuous Pain
(O to forget her!) trilling thro' my Heart!
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