Is prone to paint it dreadful. Who can take
Death's Portrait true? the Tyrant never sate:
Our Sketch, all random Strokes, Conjecture all
Clofe fhuts the Grave, nor tells one fingle Tale.
Death, and his Image rifing in the Brain
Bear faint Refemblance; never are alike
Fear shakes the Pencil, [Fancy loves Excels,
Dark Ignorance is lavish of her Shades ;
And These the formidable Picture draw.

But grant the Worft; 'tis paft; new profpects rife
And drop a Veil eternal o'er her Tomb.
Far other Views our Contemplation claim,
Views that o'erpay the Rigours of our Life;
Views that fufpend our Agonies in Death.
Wrapp'd in the Thought of Immortality,
Wrapp'd in the fingle, the triumphant Thought!
Long Life might lapfe, Age unperceiv'd come on ;;
And find the Soul unfated with her Theme.
Its Nature, Proof, Importance, fire my Song.
that my Song cou'd emulate my Soul!
Like her Immortal.. No,-the Soul disdains
A Mark fo mean; far nobler Hope inflames;
If endless Ages can outweigh an Hour,
Let not the Laurel, but the Palm infpire.
Thy Nature, Immortality! who knows?
And yet
who knows it not? It is but Life
In ftronger Thread of brighter Colour fpun,
And spun for ever; dipt by cruel Fate
In Stygian Die, how Black, how Brittle here?
How fhort our Correspondence with the Sun ?
And while it lafts, Inglorious! Our best deeds,
How wanting in their Weight? Our highest Joys,,
Small Cordials to fupport us in our Pain,.
And give us Strength to fuffer. But how Great,
To mingle Interefts, Converfe, Amities,
With all the Sons of Reason, scatter'd wide

Through

Through habitable Space, wherever born,
Howe'er endow'd? To live free Citizens
Of universal Nature? To lay hold

By more than feeble Faith on the Supreme ?
To call Heav'n's rich unfathomable Mines,
(Mines, which fupport Arch-Angels in their State}
Our own? To rife in Science, as in Bliss,

Initiate in the Secrets of the Skies?

To read Creation; read its mighty Plan
In the bare Bofom of the Deity?

The Plan and Execution to collate?

To fee, before each Glance of piercing Thought,
All Cloud, all Shadow blown remote; and leave
No Myftery-but that of Love Divine,
Which lifts us on the Seraph's flaming Wing,
From Earth's Aceldama, this Field of Blood,
Of inward Anguish, and of outward Ill,
From Darkness and from Dust, to such a Scene
Love's Element! true Joy's illuftrious Home!
From Earth's fad Contraft (now deplor'd) more fair.
What exquifite Viciffitude of Fate ?

Bleft Abfolution of our blackest Hour!

Lorenzo! thefe are Thoughts that make man Man,
The Wife illumine, aggrandize the Great.
How Great (while yet we tread the kindred Clod,
And ev'ry Moment fear to fink beneath

The Clod we tread; foon trodden by our Sons)
How Great, in the wild Whirl of Time's pursuits
To stop, and pause, involv'd in high Presage,
Through the long Vifto of a thousand Years,
To stand contemplating our diftant. Selves,
As in a magnifying Mirror seen,
Enlarg'd, Ennobled, Elevate, Divine?

To prophefy our own Futurities?

To gaze in Thought on what all Thought tranfcends To talk, with Fellow-Candidates, of Joys

As far beyond Conception, as Defert,
Ourselves th' aftonish'd Talkers, and the Tale!

Lorenzo, fwells thy Bofom at the Thought?
The Swell becomes thee: 'tis an honeft Pride.
Revere thyself; and yet thyfelf despise.
His Nature no man can o'er-rate; and none
Can under-rate his Merit. Take good heed,
Nor there be Modeft, where thou should'st be Proud:
That, almost universal, Error shun.

How juft our Pride, when we behold thofe Heights !
Not those Ambition paints in Air, but those
Reason points out, and ardent Virtue gains;
And Angels emulate; our Pride how juft!

When mount we? when these Shackles caft? when

quit

This Cell of the Creation? this fmall Neft,
Stuck in a Corner of the Universe,

Wrap'd up in fleecy Cloud, and fine-fpun Air?
Fine-fpun to Senfe ; but grofs and feculent
To Souls celeftial; Souls ordain'd to breath
Ambrofial Gales; and drink a purer Sky;
Greatly triumphant on Time's farther Shore,
Where Virtue reigns, enrich'd with full Arrears;
While Pomp Imperial begs an Alms of Peace.

In Empire high, or in proud Science deep,
Ye born of Earth! on what can you confer,
With half the Dignity, with half the Gain,
The Guft, the Glow of Rational Delight,

As on this Theme, which Angels praife, and fhare?
Man's Fates, and Favours are a Theme in Heav'n.
What wretched Repetition cloys us here?

What periodic Potions for the Sick?
Diftemper'd Bodies! and diftemper'd Minds !
In an Eternity, what Scenes fhall strike?
Adventures thicken? Novelties furprize?
What Webs of Wonder fhall unravel, there?

What

What full Day pour on all the Paths of Heav'n,
And light th' Almighty's Footsteps in the Deep?
How fhall the bleffed Day of our Discharge
Unwind, at once, the Labyrinths of Fate,
And ftraiten its inextricable Maze?

If inextinguishable Thirst in Man

To know; how rich, how full our Banquet Here?
Here, not the Moral World alone unfolds ;
The World Material, lately feen in Shades,
And in those Shades, by Fragments, only feen,
And feen those Fragments by the labouring Eye,.
Unbroken, now, illuftrious, and entire,
Its ample Sphere, its univerfal Frame,
In full Dimenfions, fwells to the Survey;
And enters, at one Glance, the ravish'd Sight.
From fome fuperior Point (where, who can tell
Suffice it, 'tis a Point where Gods refide)
How fhall the stranger, Man's illumin'd Eye,
In the vast Ocean of unbounded space,
Behold an Infinite of floating Worlds
Divide the Crystal Waves of Ether pure,

In endless Voyage, without Port? The leaft
Of these diffeminated Orbs, how Great?
Great as they are, what Numbers These surpass,
Huge, as Leviathan, to that small Race,
Those twinkling Multitudes of little Life,
He swallows unperceiv'd? Stupendous These !
Yet what are these Stupendous to the Whole?
Ás Particles, as Atoms ill-perceiv'd;
As circulating Globules in our Veins:
So vaft the Plan: Fecundity Divine !
Exub`rant Source! perhaps, I wrong thee ftill.
If Admiration is a Source of Joy,

What Transport, hence? Yet this the Leaft in Heav'n.
What This to that illuftrious Robe He wears,
Who toft this Mafs of Wonders from his Hand,

A Specimen, an Earneft of his Pow'r?
"Tis, to that Glory, whence all Glory flows,
As the Mead's meaneft Flowret to the Sun,

gave

Which it Birth. But what, this Sun of Heav'n?
This Bliss fupreme of the supremely Bleft?
Death, only Death, the Question can resolve.
By Death, cheap-bought th' Ideas of our Joy;
The bare Ideas! Solid Happiness

So diftant from its fhadow chac'd below.

And chace we still the Phantom thro' the Fire,
O'er Bog, and Brake, and Precipice, till Death?
And toil we ftill for fublunary Pay?

Defy the Dangers of the Field, and Flood,
Or, fpider-like, fpin out our precious All,
Our more than Vitals spin (if no regard
To great Futurity) in curious Webs
Of fubtile Thought, and exquifite Design;
(Fine Net-work of the Brain!) to catch a Fly
The momentary Buz of vain Renown!
A Name, a mortal Immortality.

Or (meaner still!) instead of grasping Air,
For fordid Lucre plunge we in the Mire ?
Drudge, fweat, thro' ev'ry fhame, for ev'ry Gain,
For vile contaminating Trash, throw up

Our Hope in Heav'n, our Dignity with Man?
And deify the Dirt, matur'd to Gold?

Ambition, Av'rice! the two Damons, these

Which goad thro' ev'ry Slough our Human Herd,

Hard-travel'd from the Cradle to the Grave.

How low the Wretches ftoop? how steep they climb ? These Damons burn Mankind; but most poffefs Lorenzo's Bofom, and turn out the Skies.

Is it in Time to hide Eternity?

And why not in an Atom on the Shore,
To cover Ocean? or, a Mote, the Sun?

Glory, and Wealth! have They this blinding Pow'r?

What