.

Nought fhall it profit that the charming fair, Angelick, foftest 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 mafter's will.

• Nought shall the pfaltry and the harp avail, The pleafing fong, or well-repeated tale,

When the quick spirits their warm march forbear, And numbing coldness has unbrac'd the ear. • The verdant rifing of the flow'ry hill, The vale enamell'd, and the chrystal rill, 'The ocean rolling, and the shelly shore, • Beautiful objects! fhall delight no more; • When the lax'd finews of the weaken'd In wat❜ry damps or dim fuffufion lie.

eye,

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 ftill muft mourn The fun, and moon, and ev'ry starry light, Eclips'd to him, and lost 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 bofom 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 'Diffever'd lies; unhonour'd from the board, • The chrystal urn, when broken, is thrown by, And apter utenfils their place fupply.

• These things and thou must share one equal lot;

Die, and be loft; corrupt, and be forgot:

• While ftill another, and another race,

Shall now fupply, 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 thefe ills fupprefs'd,

And view we man with health and vigour blefs'd.
Home he returns with the declining fun,

• His deftin'd task of labour hardly done;
• Goes forth again with the ascending ray,

Again his travail for his bread to pay,

And find the ill-fufficient 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 fees,
• 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 juft defert refus'd;
The truft betray'd, the nuptial bed abus'd;
The judge corrupt, the long-depending caufe,
And doubtful iffue of mif-conftru'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.

• Efteem we thefe, my friends, event and chance, • Produc'd as atoms form their flutt'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 fay, from accident or Fate?

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

}

• O fatal

O fatal fearch! in which the lab'ring mind,

• Still prefs'd with weight of woe, ftill hopes to find A fhadow of delight, a dream of peace,

From years of pain one moment of release:
Hoping, at leaft, fhe may herself deceive;
Against experience willing to believe;
Defirous to rejoice, condemn'd to grieve.

Happy the mortal man, who now at last, Has thro' this doleful vale of mis'ry pass'd; • Who to his deftin'd stage has carry'd on

‹ The tedious load, and laid his burden down;
• Whom the cut brafs, or wounded marble, fhows
• Victor o'er Life, and all her train of woes :
• He happier yet, who, privileg'd by Fate,
To fhorter 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 muft roll on life's tumultuous fea;

Who, with blefs'd freedom, from the gen'ral doom

Exempt, muft never force the teeming womb,

• Nor fee the fun, nor fink into the tomb.

• Who breathes muft fuffer, and who thinks muft mourn;

• And he alone is blefs'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 fecure it's owner's blifs?

And is not Wealth the potent fire of Peace?

'Are victors blefs'd with fame, or kings with ease?'
I tell thee, life is but one common care,

And man was born to fuffer and to fear.'
But is no rank, no ftation, no degree,
From this contagious taint of forrow free?'
None, mortal! none! yet in a bolder ftrain,
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 ftill must covet life and be deceiv'd;
• Your very fear of death fhall make ye try
To catch the fhade 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 fome ages fly;
The dome shall moulder, and the volume die.
Wretches, still taught, ftill will ye think it ftrange,
That all the parts of this great fabrick change,

Quit their old ftation and primæval frame,

And lose their shape, their effence, and their name? • Reduce the fong; our hopes, our joys are vain; • Our lot is forrow, and our portion pain.

<

• What pause from woe, what hopes of comfort bring
The name of wife 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, fome 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 eftrang'd from truth;
At home furrounded by a fervile crowd,

Prompt to abufe, and in detraction loud;

• Abroad begirt with men, and fwords, and spears;
• His very state acknowledging his fears;
Marching amidst a thousand guards, he fhows.
His fecret terror of a thousand foes;
In war, however prudent, great, or brave,
To blind events and fickle chance a slave;

• Seeking

Seeking to fettle what for ever flies,

< Sure of the toil, uncertain of the prize.

But he returns with conqueft 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,

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Echoing his glory, gratify his pride.

What is this triumph! madness, fhouts, and noife;
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, fhew
◄ National lofs, and epidemick woe;

Various diftrefs, which he and his may know. 'Does he not mourn the valiant thousands flain; 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 fuccessful pow'r,

'One moment and one thought might let him fcan
The various turns of life, and fickle ftate of man.

"Are the dire images of fad diftrust,

་

And popular change, obfcur'd amid the dust 'That rifes from the victor's rapid wheel? 'Can the loud clarion or fhrill fife repel

'The inward cries of Care? can Nature's voice,

Plaintive, be drown'd, or leffen'd in the noise;

"Tho' fhouts, as thunder loud, affli& 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,

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(Should