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A Scene more fad Sin makes the darken'd Soul;
All Comfort kills, nor leaves one Spark alive.

THO' blind of Heart, ftill open is thine Eye; Why fuch Magnificence in All thou seest? Of Matter's Grandeur, know, One End is This To tell the Rational, who gazes on it"Tho' That immenfely Great, ftill Greater He, "Whofe Breaft, capacious, can embrace, and lodge, "Unburthen'd, Nature's Univerfal Scheme; "Can grafp Creation with a fingle Thought; "Creation grafp; and not exclude its SIR". To tell him farther " It behoves him much "To guard th' important, yet-depending, Fate "Of Being, brighter than a Thousand Suns; "One fingle Ray of Thought outfhines them all.' And if Man hears obedient, foon he'll foar Superior Heights, and on his purple Wing, His purple Wing, bedrop'd with Eyes of Gold, Rifing, where Thought is now deny'd to rife, Look down triumphant on these dazling Spheres. WHY then perfift No Mortal ever liv'd, But, dying, he pronounc'd (when Words are true), The Whole that charms thee, abfolutely Vain; Vain, and far worfe!-Think Thou, with dying Men O condescend to think as Angels think!

O tolerate a Chance for Happiness!

Our Nature fuch, Ill Choice enfures Ill Fate;
And Hell had been, tho' there had been no God.
Doft Thou not know, my new Aftronomer!

Earth, turning from the Sun, brings Night to Man
Man, turning from his GoD, brings endless Night;
Where Thou canft read no Morals, find no Friend,
Amend no Manners, and expect no Peace.
How deep the Darknefs? and the Groan, how loud?
And far, how far, from lambent are the Flames?
Such is LORENZO's Purchace! Such his Praife!

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The Proud, the Politic, LORENZO's Praise ;
Tho', in his Ear, and level'd at his Heart,
I've half read o'er the Volume of the Skies.

FOR think not Thou haft heard all This from me ; My Song but echoes what Great Nature speaks; What has she spoken? Thus the Goddess spoke, Thus fpeaks for ever :- "Place, at Nature's Head, "A Sovereign, which o'er all Things rolls His Eye, Extends His Wing, promulgates His Commands, "But, above all, diffufes endless Good;

"To Whom, for fure Redrefs, the Wrong'd may fly; "The Vile, for Mercy; and the Pain'd, for Peace; "By Whom, the various Tenants of these Spheres, "Diverfify'd in Fortunes, Place, and Pow'rs, Rais'd in Enjoyment, as in Worth they rife, "Arrive at length (if worthy fuch Approach) "At that bleft Fountain-Head, from which they stream; "Where Conflict past redoubles present Joy; "And prefent Joy looks forward on Increase; "And That, on more; no Period! every Step "A double Boon! a Promife, and a Bliss.” How easy fits this Scheme on Human Hearts ? It fuits their Make; it fooths their vaft Defires Paffion is pleas'd; and Reafon afks no more; "Tis Rational! "Tis Great!-But what is Thine? It darkens! fhocks! excruciates! and confounds! Leaves us quite naked, both of Help, and Hope, Sinking from Bad to Worfe; few Years, the Sport Of Fortune; then, the Morfel of Defpair.

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SAY, then, LORENZO! (for Thou know'ft it well) What's Vice?-Mere Want of Compass in our Thought, Religion, what?-The Proof of Common Sense; How art thou hooted, where the Leaft prevails? Is it my Fault, if thefe Truths call thee Fool? And thou fhalt never be mifcall'd by me. Can neither Shame, nor Terror, stand thy Friend?

And

And art Thou ftill an Infect in the Mire?
How, like thy Guardian Angel, have I flown,
Snatch'd thee from Earth; escorted thee thro' all
Th' Ethereal Armies; walkt thee, like a God,
Thro' Splendors of firft Magnitude, arrang'd
On either Hand; Clouds thrown beneath thy Feet
Close-cruis'd on the bright Paradise of God;
And almost introduc'd thee to THE THRONE?
And art Thou still caroufing, for Delight,
Rank Poison; first, fermenting to mere Froth;
And then fubfiding into final Gall?
To Beings of fublime, immortal Make,
How fhocking is All Joy, whofe End is fure?
Such Joy more fhocking still, the more it charms!
And doft Thou chuse what ends, ere well-begun ?.
And Infamous, as Short? And doft Thou chuse
(Thou, to whofe Palate Glory is fo fweet)
To wade into Perdition, thro' Contempt ?
Nor of poor Bigots only, but thy own;
For I have peep'd into thy cover'd Heart,
And feen it blush beneath a boastful Brow;
For by ftrong Guilt's most violent Affault,
Confcience is but difabled, not destroy'd.

O THOU moft Awful Being! and most Vain!
Thy Will, how frail? how glorious is thy Power?
Tho' dread ETERNITY has fown her Seeds
Of Blifs, and Woe, in thy defpotic Breaft;
Tho' Heaven, and Hell, depend upon thy Thought,
A Butterfly comes 'crofs, and Both are fled.
Is This the Picture of a Rational?
This Horrid Image, fhall it be moft Just
LORENZO! No: It cannot,-shall not be,
If there is Force in Reason; or, in Sounds
Chaunted beneath the Glimpses of the Moon,
A Magic, at this planetary Hour;

When Slumber locks the general Lip, and Dreams

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Thro' fenfelefs Mazes hunt Souls un infpir'd.
Attend -The facred Mysteries begin -
My folemn Night born Adjuration hear;
Hear, and I'll raise thy Spirit from the Duft;
While the Stars gaze on this Enchantment new
Enchantment, not Infernal, but Divine!

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64

"By Silence, DEATH'S peculiar Attribute;

By Darkness, GUILT's inevitable Doom:

By Darkness, and by Silence, Sifters dread! "That draw the Curtain round NIGHT's ebon Throne, "And raise Ideas, folemn as the Scene:

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By NIGHT, and all of Awful, Night presents.

To Thought, or Sense (of Awful much, to Both, "The Goddefs brings): By Thefe her trembling Fires "Like VESTA's, ever burning; and, like hers, "Sacred to Thoughts immaculate, and pure: "By these bright Orators, that prove, and praise, "And prefs thee to revere, the DEITY, "Perhaps, too, aid thee, when rever'd a while, "To reach His Throne; as Stages of the Soul, "Thro' which, at different Periods, fhe fhall pafs, Refining gradual, for her final Height;

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"And purging off fome Drofs at every Sphere :

By this dark Pall thrown o'er the filent World: "By the World's Kings, and Kingdoms, moft renown'd, "From fhort Ambition's Zenith fet for ever;

"Sad Prefage to vain Roasters, now, in Bloom!

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By the long Lift of fwift Mortality,

"From Adam, downward to this Evening's Knell, "Which Midnight waves in Fancy's ftartled Eye; "And fhocks her with a hundred Centuries

"Round Death's 'black Banner throng'd, in human "Thought:

"By Thoufands, now, refigning their laft Breath, "And calling Thee -wert Thou fo wife to hear: **By Tombs o'er Tombs arising, human Earth

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Ejected, to make room for-human Earth; "The Monarch's Terror! and the Sexton's Trade! "By pompous Obfequies, that fhun the Day,

The Torch funereal, and the nodding Plume, "Which makes poor Man's Humiliation, proud. "Boalt of our Ruin! Triumph of our Duft!

●་

By the damp. Vault that weeps o'er Royal Bones "And the pale Lamp, that fhews the ghaftly Dead, "More ghaftly thro' the thick-incumbent Gloom:

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By Vifits (if there are) from darker Scenes, "The gliding Spectre ! and the groaning Grove! »

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By Groans, and Graves, and Miseries that groan { "For the Grave's Shelter: By defponding Men, "Senfelefs to Pains of Death, from Pangs of Guilt I "By Guilt's laft Audit: By yon Moon in Blood, "The rocking. Firmament, the falling Stars, "And Thunder's last Discharge, great Nature's Knell!' By SECOND Chaos; and ETERNAL Night”

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Be Wife- —nor let Philander blame my Charm;
But own not ill-discharg'd my double Debt
Love to the Living; Duty to the Dead..

FOR know, I'm but Executor; He left e
This moral Legacy; I make it o'er
By his Command; Philander hear in me;
And Heaven in both.-

If deaf to Thefe, Oh! hear
Florello's tender Voice; His Weal depends
On Thy Refolve; it trembles at Thy Choice:
For His Sake-love Thyself; Example ftrikes
All human Hearts; a bad Example, more;
More ftill, a Father's; That enfures his Ruin..
As Parent of his Being, wouldft thou prove
Th' unnatural Parent of his Miferies,

And make him curfe the Being which thou gav't?
Is this the Bleffing of fo fond a Father?

If careless of LORENZO! fpare, Oh! fpare,
Florello's Father, and Philander's Friend

Florello's Father ruin'd, ruins Him

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