Nought shall it profit that the charming fair, Angelick, softest work of Heav'n, draws near • To the cold shaking, paralytick hand, • Senseless of Beauty's touch, or Love's command; • Nor longer apt or able to fulfil The dictates of it's feeble master's will.

Nought shall the psaltry and the harp avail, * The pleasing song, or well-repeated tale,

When the quick spirits their warm march forbear, • And numbing coldness has unbrac'd the ear.

· The verdant rising of the flow'ry hill, · The vale enamell’d, and the chrystal rill, • The ocean rolling, and the shelly shore, • Beautiful objects ! shall delight no more; • When the lax'd finews of the weaken'd eye, ' In wat'ry damps or dim fuffufion lie.

Day follows night; the clouds return again, ' After the falling of the latter rain ; • But to the aged blind shall ne'er return

Grateful viciffitude: he still must mourn · The sun, and moon, and ev'ry starry light, Eclips'd to him, and loft in everlasting night. • Behold where Age's wretched victim lies! See his head trembling, and his half-clos'd eyes! .

Frequent for breath his panting bosom heaves; - To broken sleep his remnant sense he gives, * And only by his pains, awaking, finds he lives.

Loos'd by devouring Time, the filver cord Diflever'd lies ; unhonour'd from the board, • The chrystal urn, when broken, is thrown by, ' And apter utensils their place supply. ' These things and thou must share one equal lot; · Die, and be loft; corrupt, and be forgot : • While still another, and another race, • Shall now supply, and now give up the place.

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From earth all came, to earth must all return; · Frail as the cord, and brittle as the urn.

< But be the terror of these ills fuppress'd,

And view we man with health and vigour bless’d.
« Home he returns with the declining fun,
• His destin'd talk of labour hardly done;
• Goes forth again with the ascending ray,
• Again his travail for his bread to pay,
« And find the ill-sufficient to the day.

Haply at night he does with horror fhun
- A widow'd daughter, or a dying fon;
• His neighbour's offspring he to-morrow sees,
• And doubly feels his want in their increase :
• The next day, and the next, he must attend
• His foe triumphant, or his buried friend.
• In ev'ry act and turn of life he feels

Publick calamities or houshold ills:
« The due reward to just defert refus'd;
· The trust betray'd, the nuptial bed abus'd;
« The judge corrupt, the long-depending cause,

And doubtful issue of mis-constru'd laws ;
• The crafty turns of a dishonest state,
« And violent will of the wrong-doing great ;
“The venom'd tongue injurious to his fame,
( Which nor can wisdom fhun, nor fair advice reclaim

• Esteem we these, my friends, event and chance,
• Produc'd as atoms form their Autt'ring dance?

Or higher yet their effence may we draw
• From deftin'd order and eternal law ?

Again, my Mufe, the cruel doubt repeat: :
Spring they, I say, from accident or Fate?

Yet such we find they are, as can controul
· The servile actions of our wav'ring foul ;
Can fright, can alter, or can chain the will ;
Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.

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O fatal search! in which the lab'ring mind, * Still press’d with weight of woe, ftill hopes to find < A shadow of delight, a dream of peace, « From

years of pain one moment of release: Hoping, at least, she may herself deceive;

Against experience willing to believe; • Desirous to rejoice, condemn'd to grieve.

• Happy the mortal man, who now at last, « Has thro' this doleful vale of misry pass'd;

Who to his deftin'd stage has carry'd on • The tedious load, and laid his burden down ; < Whom the cut brass, or wounded marble, shows • Victor o'er Life, and all her train of woes : • He happier yet, who, privileg'd by Fate, < To shorter labour and a lighter weight, • Receiv'd but yesterday the gift of breath, « Order'd to-morrow to return to death. • But, O! beyond description, happiest he • Who ne'er must roll on life's tumultuous sea; • Who, with bless’d freedom, from the gen’ral doom

Exempt, must never force the teeming womb, • Nor see the fun, nor sink into the tomb. « Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks muft mourn ; . And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.'

• Yet, in thy turn, thou frowning Preacher, hear; · Are not these general maxims too severe ?

Say, cannot Pow'r secure it's owner's bliss ? . And is not Wealth the potent fire of Peace ? • Are victors bless’d with fame, or kings with ease?'

- I tell thee, life is but one common care, • And man was born to suffer and to fear.'

• But is no rank, no station, -no degree, . From this contagious taint of sorrow free?'

None, mortal! none ! yet in a bolder Arain, Let me this melancholy truth maintain.

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« But

• But hence, ye worldly, and prophane, retire ;
• For I adapt my voice, and raise my lyre
• To notions not by vulgar ear receiv’d-
• Ye still must covet life and be deceiv'd;
• Your very fear of death shall make ye try
• To catch the shade of immortality,
• Wishing on earth to linger, and to save
• Part of it's prey from the devouring grave ;
• To those who may survive you to bequeath
• Something entire, in spite of Time and Death;
• A fancy'd kind of being to retrieve,
• And in a book, or from a building, live.
• False hope ! vain labour ! let some ages fly ;
• The dome shall moulder, and the volume die.
• Wretches, itill taught, fill will ye think it strange,
• That all the parts of this great fabrick change,
• Quit their old station and primæval frame,
* And lose their shape, their essence, and their name?

• Reduce the song; our hopes, our joys are vain ;
Our lot is sorrow, and our portion pain.

• What pause from woe, what hopes of comfort bring • The name of wise or great, of judge or king! • What is a king?--a man condemn’d to bear • The publick burden of the nation's care : * Now crown'd, some angry faction to appease;. • Now falls a victim to the people's ease. • From the first blooming of his ill-taught youth, • Nourish'd in flatt'ry, and estrang'd from truth ; • At home surrounded by a servile crowd,

Prompt to abuse, and in detraction loud; • Abroad begirt with men, and swords, and spears ; • His very state acknowledging his fears ; • Marching amidst a thousand guards, he Mhows • His secret terror of a thousand foes ; • In war, however prudent, great, or brave, • To blind events and fickle chance a lave ;

Seeking

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Seeking to settle what for ever flies, • Sure of the toil, uncertain of the prize.

• But he returns with conquest on his brow; Brings up the triumph, and abfolves the vow : • The captive generals to his car aré ty’d;

The joyful citizens' tumultuous tide,

Echoing his glory, gratify his pride. * What is this triumph! madness, fhouts, and noise; • One great collection of the people's voice. • The wretches he brings back, in chains relate • What may to-morrow be the victor's fate: • The spoils and trophies, borne before him, shew • National loss, and epidemick woe; * Various distress, which he and his may know. • Does he not mourn the valiant thousands Main; • The heroes, once the glory of the plain, • Left in the conflict of the fatal day, • Or the wolf's portion, or the vulture's prey ? • Does he not weep the laurel which he wears, • Wet with the foldiers blood and widows tears?

See, where he comes, the darling of the war! See millions crouding round the gilded car! • In the vast joys of this extatick hour, • And full fruition of successful pow'r, • One moment and one thought might let him scan • The various turns of life, and fickle state of man. • Are the dire images of sad distruit,

And popular change, obscur'd amid the dust • That rises from the victor's rapid wheel? • Can the loud clarion or shrill fife repel • The inward cries of Care? can Nature's voice, • Plaintive, be drown'd, or lessen'd in the noise; • Tho’shouts, as thunder loud, afflict the air, • Stun the birds, now releas'd, and shake the iv'ry chair ?

• Yon crowd, (he might reflect) yon joyful crowd, . Pleas'd with my honours, in my praises loud,

(Should