And every pleasure pains me to the heart.
Yet why complain? or why complain for one ?
Hangs out the fun his luftre but for me,
The fingle man? are angels all befide?
I mourn for millions: 'tis the common lot;
In this fhape, or in that, has fate entail'd
'The mother's throws on all of woman born,
Not more the children, than fure heirs of pain.
War, famine, peft, volcano, ftorm, and fire,
Inteftine broils, oppression, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brass, befiege mankind :
God's image difinherited of day,

Here plung'd in mines, forgets a fun was made;"
There, beings deathlefs as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plough the winter's wave, and reap despair :
Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread thro' realms their valour fav'd,
If fo the tyrant, or his minion, doom :
Want, and incurable difeafe, (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorfelefs feize
At once; and make a refuge of the grave:
How groaning Hofpitals eject their dead ?
What numbers groan for fad admission there?
What numbers, once in fortune's lap high-fed,
Sollicit the cold hand of charity?

To fhock us more, follicit it in (vain"? :
Ye filken fons of pleafure! fince in pains
You rue more modifh visits, visit here,

And breathe from your debauch: give, and reduce
Surfeit's dominion o'er you :" but fo great
Your impudence, you blush at what is right !ire
Happy! did for row feize on fuch alone:::

Not prudence can defend, nor virtue fave;
Disease invades the chafteft temperance;
And punishment the guiltlefs; and alarm
Thro' thickest shades purfues the fond of peace.
Man's caution often into danger turns,

And his guard falling, crufhes him to death.
Not happiness itself makes good her name;
Our very wishes give us not our wish.
How distant oft the thing we doat on most,
From that for which we doat, felicity?
The smootheft courfe of nature has its pains,
And truest friends, thro' error, wound our reft;
Without misfortune, what calamities?

And what hostilities, without a foe?

Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth:
But endless is the lift of human ills,

1

and ugns might fooner fail, than caufe to high.
A part how fmall of the terraqueous globe.
Is tenanted by man? the reft a waste,
Rocks, defarts, frozen feas, and burning fands;
Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, ftings, and death:
Such is earth's melancholy map ! But far

More fad! this earth is a true map of man :
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights

To woe's wide empire; where deep troubles tofs;
Loud forrows howl, envenom'd paffions bite,
Ravenous calamities our vitals feize,
And threat'ning fate wide-opens to devour.
What then am I, who forrow for myself?

In age, in infancy, from others aid
Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind.
That, nature's first, last lesson to mankind:
The selfish heart deferves the pain it feels;
More generous forrow, while it finks, exalts,

And conscious virtue mitigates the pang.

Nor virtue, more than prudence, bids me give

Swoln thought a fecond channel; who divide,
They weaken too, the torrent of their grief
Take then, O world! thy much indebted tear:
How fad a fight is human happiness

To thofe whofe thought can pierce beyond an hour? ◇ thou! whate’er thou art, whose heart exults! Would'st thou I fhould congratulate thy fate?

I know thou would'st; thy pride demands it from me.
Let thy pride pardon, what thy nature needs,
The falutary cenfure of a friend.

Thou happy wretch! by blindnefs art thou bleft;
By dotage dandled to perpetual fmiles.

Know, fmiler! at thy peril art thou pleas'd
Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.
Misfortune, like à crèditor feveré,
But rifes in demand for her delay;
She makes a fcourge of paft profperity,
To fting thee more, and double thy diftrefs.
Lorenzo, fortune makes her court to thee;
Thy fond heart dances, while the Syren fings.
Dear is thy welfare; think me not unkind;
I would not damp, but to fecure thy joys:
Think not that fear is facred 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 caufe, and confequence:
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our defert;
Awe nature's tumult, and chaftife her jays,

Left while we clafp, we kill them; nay invert
To worfe than fimple mifery, their charms:
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,
Like bofom friendships to refentment 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 bafe,
Fond as he feems, condemns his joys to death

Mine dy'd with thee, Philander thy laft figh
Diffolv'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 out-caft earth, in darkness what a change
From yesterday! Thy darling hope fo near,
(Long-labour'd prize!) O 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 fcheme, and beckon'd
The worm to riot on that rofe fo red,
Unfaded e'er it fell; one moment's prey!
Man's forefight is conditionally wife ;

Lorenzo! wifdom into folly turns

Oft, the first instant, its idea fairie

To labouring thought is born. How dim our eye
The prefent moment terminates our fight:

Clouds, thick as thofe on doomsday, drown the next ;
We penetrate, we prophefy in vain.

Time is dealt out by particles; and each,

E'er mingled with the ftreaming fands of life

*

By fate's inviolable oath is fworn at gibus pur

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 rise,
Than man's prefumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? in another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is fure to none; and yet on this perhaps,
This peradventure, infamous for lies,
As on a rock of adamant we build
Our mountain hopes; fpin out eternal schemes,
As we the fatal fifters cou'd out-spin,
And, big with life's futurities, expire.

Not even Philander had befpoke his fhroud;
Nor had he caufe, a warning was deny'd;
How many fall as fudden, not as fafe?
As fudden, tho' for years admonisht home ?
Of human ills. the last extreme beware,.
Beware, Lorenzo! a flow-fudden death.
Now dreadful that deliberate furprize?
Be wife to-day, 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pufli'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 vaft concerns of an eternal scene.
If not fe frequent, would not this be strange ?
That 'tis fo frequent, this is stranger ftill.

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, fhall not drivel; and their pride