With pious sacrilege, a grave I stole ;
With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd;
Short in my duty! coward in my grief!
More like her murderer, than friend, I crept,
With soft-suspended step, and muffled deep
In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh.
I whisper'd what should echo through their realms;
Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the
skies.

Presumptuous fear! How durst I dread her foes,
While Nature's loudest dictates I obey'd?
Pardon necessity, blest shade! Of grief
And indignation rival bursts I pour'd;
Half execration mingled with my prayer;
Kindled at man, while I his God ador'd;
Sore grudg'd the savage land her sacred dust;
Stampt the curst soil; and with humanity
(Denied Narcissa) wish'd them all a grave.

Glows my resentment into guilt? What guilt
Can equal violations of the dead?
The dead how sacred! Sacred is the dust
Of this Heaven-labor'd form, erect, divine!
This Heaven-assum'd majestic robe of Earth,
He deign'd to wear, who hung the vast expanse
With azure bright, and cloth'd the Sun in gold.
When every passion sleeps that can offend;
When strikes us every motive that can melt;
When man can wreak his rancor uncontroll'd,
That strongest curb on insult and ill-will;
Then, spleen to dust! the dust of innocence!
An angel's dust!-This Lucifer transcends;
When he contended for the patriarch's bones,
"Twas not the strife of malice, but of pride;
The strife of pontiff pride, not pontiff gall.

For less than this is shocking in a race
Most wretched, but from streams of mutual love;
And uncreated, but for love divine,
And, but for love divine, this moment lost,
By fate resorb'd, and sunk in endless night.
Man hard of heart to man! of horrid things
Most horrid! 'Mid stupendous, highly strange!
Yet oft his courtesies are smoother wrongs;
Pride brandishes the favors he confers,
And contumelious his humanity;
What then his vengeance? Hear it not, ye stars!
And thou, pale Moon! turn paler at the sound;
Man is to man the sorest, surest ill.

A previous blast foretells the rising storm;
O'erwhelming turrets threaten ere they fall;
Volcanoes bellow ere they disembogue;
Earth trembles ere her yawning jaws devour;
And smoke betrays the wide-consuming fire:
Ruin from man is most conceal'd when near,
And sends the dreadful tidings in the blow.
Is this the flight of fancy? Would it were!
Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings, but himself,
That hideous sight, a naked human heart.

Fir'd is the Muse? And let the Muse be fir'd:
Who not inflam'd, when what he speaks, he feels,
And in the nerve most tender, in his friends?
Shame to mankind! Philander had his foes:
He felt the truths I sing, and I in him.
But he, nor I, feel more; past ills, Narcissa!
Are sunk in thee, thou recent wound of heart!
Which bleeds with other cares, with other pangs;
Pangs numerous, as the numerous ills that swarm'd
O'er thy distinguish'd fate, and, clustering there
Thick as the locusts on the land of Nile,

How was each circumstance with aspics arm'd?
An aspic, each! and all, an hydra woe:
What strong Herculean virtue could suffice?-
Or is it virtue to be conquer'd here?
This hoary check a train of tears bedews;
And each tear mourns its own dis'inct distress;
And each distress, distinctly mourn'd, demands
Of grief still more, as heighten'd by the whole.
A grief like this proprietors excludes:
Not friends alone such obsequies deplore;
They make mankind the mourner; carry sighs
Far as the fatal Fame can wing her way;
And turn the gayest thought of gayest age,
Down their right channel, through the vale of death
The vale of death! that hush'd Cimmerian vaie,
Where darkness, brooding o'er unfinish'd fates,
With raven wing incumbent, waits the day
(Dread day!) that interdicts all future change!
That subterranean world! that land of ruin!
Fit walk, Lorenzo, for proud human thought!
There let my thought expatiate, and explore
Balsamic truths and healing sentiments,
Of all most wanted, and most welcome, here.
For gay Lorenzo's sake, and for thy own,
My soul! "The fruits of dying friends survey;
Expose the vain of life; weigh life and death;
Give death his eulogy; thy fear subdue;
And labor that first palm of noble minds,
A manly scorn of terror from the tomb."

This harvest reap from thy Narcissa's grave.
As poets feign'd, from Ajax' streaming blood
Arose, with grief inscrib'd, a mournful flower;
Let wisdom blossom from my mortal wound.
And first, of dying friends; what fruit from these
It brings us more than triple aid; an aid
To chase our thoughtlessness, fear, pride, and guilt.
Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud,
To damp our brainless ardors; and abate
That glare of life which often blinds the wise.
Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth
Our rugged pass to death; to break those bars
Of terror and abhorrence Nature throws
Cross our obstructed way; and, thus to make
Welcome, as safe, our port from every storm.
Each friend by fate snatch'd from us, is a plume
Pluck'd from the wing of human vanity,
Which makes us stoop from our aërial heights,
And, dampt with omen of our own decease,
On drooping pinions of ambition lower'd,
Just skim Earth's surface, cre we break it up,
O'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust,
And save the world a nuisance. Smitten friends
Are angels sent on errands full of love;
For us they languish, and for us they die:
And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain ?
Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hovering shades,
Which wait the revolution in our hearts?
Shall we disdain their silent, soft address;
Their posthumous advice, and pious prayer?
Senseless, as herds that graze their hallow'd graves
Tread under foot their agonies and groans;
Frustrate their anguish, and destroy their deaths?
Lorenzo! no; the thought of death indulge;
Give it its wholesome empire! let it reign,
That kind chastiser of thy soul in joy!
Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far,
And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast:
Auspicious era! golden days, begin!

Made death more deadly, and more dark the grave. The thought of death shall, like a god, inspire.
Reflect (if not forgot my touching tale)

And why not think on death? Is life the theme

Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres.
Through chinks, styl'd organs, dim life peeps at
light;

Death bursts th' involving cloud, and all is day;
All
eye, all ear, the disembodied power.
Death has feign'd evils, Nature shall not feel;
Life, ill substantial, Wisdom cannot shun.
Is not the mighty Mind, that son of Heaven?
By tyrant Life dethron'd, imprison'd, pain'd?
By Death enlarg'd, ennobled, deified?
Death but entombs the body; life the soul.

"Is Death then guiltless? How he marks his way
With dreadful waste of what deserves to shine!
Art, genius, fortune, elevated power!

With various lustres these light up the world,
Which Death puts out, and darkens human race."
I grant, Lorenzo! this indictment just:
The sage, peer, potentate, king, conqueror!

Rich death, that realizes all my cares,
Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera!
Death, of all pain the period, not of joy;
Joy's source, and subject, still subsists unhurt:
One, in my soul; and one, in her great Sire;
Though the four winds were warring for my dust
Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night,
Though prison'd there, my dust too I reclaim,
(To dust when drop proud Nature's proudest
spheres,)

And live entire. Death is the crown of life:
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain ;
Were death denied, to live would not be life;
Were death denied, e'en fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rise, we reign!
Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies;
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight:
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost.

Death humbles these; more barbarous life, the man. This king of terrors is the prince of peace.

Life is the triumph of our mouldering clay;
Death, of the spirit infinite! divine!

Death has no dread, but what frail life imparts;
Nor life true joy, but what kind death improves.
No bliss has life to boast, till death can give
Far greater; life's a debtor to the grave,
Dark lattice! letting in eternal day.

Lorenzo! blush at fondness for a life,
Which sends celestial souls on errands vile,
To cater for the sense; and serve at boards,
Where every ranger of the wilds, perhaps
Each reptile, justly claims our upper hand.
Luxurious feast! a soul, a soul immortal,
In all the dainties of a brute bemir'd!
Lorenzo! blush at terror for a death,
Which gives thee to repose in festive bowers,
Where nectars sparkle, angels minister,
And more than angels share, and raise, and crown,
And eternize, the birth, bloom, bursts of bliss.
What need I more? O Death, the palm is thine.
Then welcome, Death! thy dreaded harbingers,
Age, and disease; disease, though long my guest;
That plucks my nerves, those tender strings of life;
Which, pluck'd a little more, will toll the bell,
That call my few friends to my funeral;
Where feeble Nature drops, perhaps, a tear,
While Reason and Religion, better taught,
Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory;
It binds in chains the raging ills of life:
Lust and ambition, wrath and avarice,
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power.
That ills corrosive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O Death! is thine.
Our day of dissolution!-name it right;
"Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich
And ripe. What though the sickle, sometimes
keen,

Just scars us as we reap the golden grain?
More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound.
Birth's feeble cry, and Death's deep dismal groan,
, Are slender tributes low-tax'd Nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each, of life!
But O! the last the former so transcends,
Life dies, compar'd; life lives beyond the grave.
And feel I, Death! no joy from thought of thee?
Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires
With every nobler thought, and fairer deed!
Death, the deliverer, who rescues man!
Death, the rewarder, who the rescued crowns!
Death, that absolves my birth; a curse without it!

When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?

When shall I die?-When shall I live for ever?

NIGHT THE FOURTH.

THE CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH.

Containing our only Cure for the Fear of Death; and proper Sentiments of that inestimable Blessing.

TO THE HONORABLE MR. YORKE.

A MUCH-INDEBTED Muse, O Yorke! intrudes.
Amid the smiles of fortune, and of youth,
Thine ear is patient of a serious song.-
How deep implanted in the breast of man
The dread of death! I sing its sovereign cure.
Why start at Death? Where is he? Death

arriv'd,

Is past; not come or gone, he's never here.
Ere hope, sensation fails; black-boding man
Receives, not suffers, Death's tremendous blow.
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave;
The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm;
These are the bugbears of a winter's eve,
The terrors of the living, not the dead.
Imagination's fool, and error's wretch,
Man makes a death, which Nature never made;
Then on the point of his own fancy falls;
And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.

But were Death frightful, what has age to fear?
If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe,
And shelter in his hospitable gloom.

I scarce can meet a monument, but holds
My younger; every date cries—“Come away.”
And what recalls me? Look the world around,
And tell me what: the wisest cannot tell.
Should any born of woman give his thought
Full range on just dislike's unbounded field;
Of things, the vanity; of men, the flaws,
Flaws in the best; the many, flaw all o'er;
As leopards, spotted, or, as Ethiops, dark;
Vivacious ill; good dying immature;
(How immature, Narcissa's marble tells!)
And at his death bequeathing endless pain;
His heart, though bold, would sicken at the sight,
And spend itself in sighs, for future scenes.
But grant to life (and just it is to grant
To lucky life) some perquisites of joy;

Horror receives us, and the dismal wish
Creation had been smother'd in her birth-
Darkness his curtain, and his bed the dust;
When stars and Sun are dust beneath his throne!
In Heaven itself can such indulgence dwell?
O what a groan was there! a groan not his.
He seiz'd our dreadful right; the load sustain'd;
And heav'd the mountain from a guilty world.
A thousand worlds, so bought, were bought too dear;
Sensations new in angels' bosoms rise;
Suspend their song! and make a pause in bliss.
O for their song; to reach my lofty theme!
Inspire me, Night! with all thy tuneful spheres ;
Whilst I with seraphs share scraphic themes!
And show to men the dignity of man;
Lest I blaspheme my subject with my song.
Shall Pagan pages glow celestial flame,

And Christian languish? on our hearts, not heads,
Falls the foul infamy: my heart! awake.

What can awake thee, unawak'd by this,

Expended deity on human weal?"

The Sun beheld it-no, the shocking scene
Drove back his chariot: midnight veil'd his face;
Not such as this; not such as Nature makes;
A midnight Nature shudder'd to behold;
A midnight new! a dread eclipse (without
Opposing spheres) from her Creator's frown!
Sun! didst thou fly thy Maker's pain? Or start
At that enormous load of human guilt,
Which bow'd his blessed head; o'erwhelm'd his cross;
Made groan the centre; burst Earth's marble womb,
With pangs, strange pangs! deliver'd of her dead?
Hell howl'd; and Heaven that hour let fall a tear;
Heaven wept, that men might smile! Heaven bled,
that man

Might never die!

And is devotion virtue? "Tis compell'd.
What heart of stone but glows at thoughts like these?
Such contemplations mount us; and should mount
The mind still higher; nor ever glance on man
Unraptur'd, uninflam'd.-Where roll my thoughts
To rest from wonders? other wonders rise;

Feel the great truths, which burst the tenfold night And strike where'er they roll: my soul is caught:
Of heathen error, with a golden flood

:

Of endless day to feel, is to be fir'd;
And to believe, Lorenzo! is to feel.

Thou most indulgent, most tremendous Power!
Still more tremendous, for thy wondrous love!
That arms, with awe more awful, thy commands;
And foul transgression dips in sevenfold night!
How our hearts tremble at thy love immense!
In love immense, inviolably just!
Thou, rather than thy justice should be stain'd,
Didst stain the cross; and work of wonders far
The greatest, that thy dearest far might bleed.

Heaven's sovereign blessings, clustering from tho

cross,

Rush on her, in a throng, and close her round,
The prisoner of amaze!—in his blest life
I see the path, and in his death the price,
And in his great ascent the proof supreme
Of immortality.--And did he rise?
Hear, O ye nations! hear it, O ye dead!
He rose! he rose! he burst the bars of death.
Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates!
And give the King of glory to come in.
Who is the King of glory? he who left
His throne of glory, for the pang of death!
Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates!

Bold thought! shall I dare speak it, or repress?
Should man more execrate, or boast, the guilt
Which rous'd such vengeance? which such love in- And give the King of glory to come in.

flam'd?

Who is the King of glory? he who slew

O'er guilt (how mountainous!) with outstretch'd arms, The ravenous foe, that gorg'd all human race! Stern justice and soft-smiling love embrace,

Supporting, in full majesty, thy throne,
When seem'd its majesty to need support,
Or that, or man, inevitably lost;

What, but the fathomless of thought divine,
Could labor such expedient from despair,
And rescue both? both rescue! both exalt!
O how are both exalted by the deed!
The wondrous deed! or shall I call it more?
A wonder in Omnipotence itself!
A mystery no less to gods than men!

Not thus, our infidels the Eternal draw,
A God all o'er, consummate, absolute,
Full-orb'd, in his whole round of rays complete :
They set at odds Heaven's jarring attributes;
And, with one excellence, another wound;
Maim Heaven's perfection, break its equal beams,
Bid mercy triumph over-God himself,
Undeified by their opprobrious praise :
A God all mercy, is a God unjust.

Ye brainless wits! ye baptiz'd infidels!
Ye worse for mending! wash'd to fouler stains!
The ransom was paid down; the fund of Heaven,
Heaven's inexhaustible, exhausted fund,
Amazing, and amaz'd, pour'd forth the price,
All price beyond: though curious to compute,
Archangels fail'd to cast the mighty sum:
Its value vast, ungrasp'd by minds create,
For ever hides, and glows, in the Supreme.
And was the ransom paid? it was and paid
(What can exalt the bounty more?) for you.

The King of glory, he, whose glory fill'd
Heaven with amazement at his love to man;
And with divine complacency beheld
Powers most illumin'd, wilder'd in the theme.

The theme, the joy, how then shall man sustain ?
Oh the burst gates! crush'd sting! demolish'd throne!
Last gasp! of vanquish'd Death. Shout Earth and

Heaven!

[ration

This sum of good to man. Whose nature, then,
Took wing, and mounted with him from the tomb!
Then, then, I rose; then first humanity
Triumphant pass'd the crystal ports of light,
(Stupendous guest!) and seiz'd eternal youth,
Seiz'd in our name. E'er since, 'tis blasphemous
To call man mortal. Man's mortality
Was, then, transferr'd to death; and Heaven's du
Unalienably seal'd to this frail frame,
This child of dust-Man, all immortal! hail;
Hail, Heaven! all lavish of strange gifts to man'
Thine all the glory; man's the boundless bliss.
Where am I rapt by this triumphant theme,
On Christian joy's exulting wing, above
Th' Aonian mount? Alas! small cause for joy!
What if to pain immortal? if extent
Of being, to preclude a close of woe?
Where, then, my boast of immortality?

I boast it still, though cover'd o'er with guilt;
For guilt, not innocence, his life he pour'd,
"Tis guilt alone can justify his death!
Nor that, unless his death can justify

| Relenting guilt in Heaven's indulgent sight