O'er all your passions with unrivall'd sway
Mutual and everlasting: friendship knows
No property in good, but all things common
That each possesses, as the light or air

In which we breathe and live: there's not one thought
Can lurk in close reserve, no barriers fix'd,

But every passage open as the day

To one another's breast and inmost mind.

Thus by communion your delight shall grow,

Thus streams of mingled bliss swell higher as they flow, Thus angels mix their flames, and more divinely glow.

PART III.

THE ACCOUNT BALANCED.

SHOULD Sovereign love before me stand,
With all his train of pomp and state,
And bid the daring muse relate
His comforts and his cares;
Mitio, I would not ask the sand
For metaphors t' express their weight,
Nor borrow numbers from the stars.
Thy cares and comforts, sovereign love,
Vastly outweigh the sand below,
And to a larger audit grow

Than all the stars above.
Thy mighty losses and thy gains

Are their own mutual measures;

Only the man that knows thy pains
Can reckon up thy pleasures.

Say, Damon, say how bright the scene,
Damon is half-divinely blest,

Leaning his head on his Florella's breast

Without a jealous thought or busy care between:
They the sweet passions mix and share:
Florella tells thee all her heart,

Nor can thy soul's remotest part

Conceal a thought or wish from the beloved fair.

Say, what a pitch thy pleasures fly,

When friendship all-sincere grows up to ecstacy;
Nor self contracts the bliss, nor vice pollutes the joy?
While thy dear offspring round thee sit,

Or sporting innocently at thy feet,

Thy kindest thoughts engage:

Those little images of thee,

What pretty toys of youth they be,
And growing props of age!

But short is earthly bliss! the changing wind
Blows from the sickly south, and brings
Malignant fevers on its sultry wings,
Relentless death sits close behind:

Now gasping infants, and a wife in tears,
With piercing groans salute his ears,
Through ev'ry vein the thrilling torments roll;
While sweet and bitter are at strife

In those dear nurseries of life,

Those tenderest pieces of his bleeding soul.

The pleasing sense of love awhile,

Mixt with the heart-ache, may the pain beguile,

And make a feeble fight:

Till sorrows like a gloomy deluge rise,

Then every smiling passion dies,

And hope alone with wakeful eyes,

Darkling and solitary, waits the slow-returning light.

Here, then, let my ambition rest,
May I be moderately blest

When I the laws of love obey:
Let but my pleasure and my pain

In equal balance ever reign,

Or mount by turns and sink again,

And share just measures of alternate sway.
So Damon lives, and ne'er complains;
Scarce can we hope diviner scenes

On this dull stage of clay:

The tribes beneath the northern bear
Submit to darkness half the year,
Since half the year is day.

EPISTOLA.

Fratri suo dilecto R. W. I. W. S. P.D.

RURSUM tuas, amande frater accepi literas, eodem fortassè momento, quo mese ad te pervenerunt; idemque qui te scribentem vidit dies, meum ad epistolare munus excitavit calamum ; non inane est inter nos fraternum nomen, unicus enim spiritus nos intùs animat, agitque, et concordes in ambobus efficit motus. O utinam crescat indies, et vigescat mutua charitas! Faxit Deus, ut amor sui nostra incendat et defæcet pectora, tuncet enim et alternus, puræ amicitiæ flammis erga nos invicem divinum in modum ardebimus; contemplemur Jesum nostrum, cœleste illud, et adorandum exemplar charitatis.

Qui quondam æterno delapsus ab æthere vultus
Induit humanos, ut posset corpore nostras
(Heu miseras) sufferre vices; sponsoris obivit
Munera, et in sese Tabula maledicta minacis
Transtulit, et sceleris pœnas hominisque reatum.

Ecce jacet desertus humi, diffusus in herbam
Integer, innocuas versus sua sidera palmas
Et placidum attollens vultum, nec ad oscula Patris
Amplexus solitosve; artus nudatus amictu
Sidereos, et sponte sinum patefactus ad iras
Numinis armati. "Pater, hic infige* sagittas :
Hæc," ait, iratum sorbebunt pectora ferrum,
Abluat ethereus mortalia crimina sanguis."

Dixit, et horrendùm fremuêre tonitrua cœli
Infensusque Deus, (quem jam posuisse paternum
Musa queri vellet nomen, sed et ipsa fragores
Ad tantos pavefacta silet.) Jam dissilit æther,
Pandunturque fores, ubi duro carcere regnat
Ira, et pœnarum thesauros mille coercet,
Inde ruunt gravidi vesano sulphere nimbi,
Centuplicisque volant contorta volumina flamme
In caput immeritum; diro hic sub pondere pressus
Restat, compressos dumque ardens explicat artus
Purpureo† vestes tinctae sudore madescunt.
Nec tamen infando Vindex regina labori
Segniùs incumbit, sed lassos increpat ignes
Acriter, et somno languentem suscitat‡ ensem:
"Surge, age, divinum pete pectus, et imbue sacro
Flumine mucronem; vos hinc, mea spicula, latè
Ferrea per totum dispergite tormina Christum
Immeusum tolerare valet, ad pondera pœnæ-
Sustentanda hominem suffulciet incola NUMEN.
Et ut sacra decas legum, violata tabella,
Ebibe vindictam, vastâ satiabere cæde;
Mortalis culpae pensabit dedecus ingens
Permistus Deitate cruor."

Sic fata, immiti contorquet vulnera dextrâ Dilaniatque sinus; sancti penetralia cordis

Job. iv. 6. + Luke, xxii. 44, 1 Zech. xiii. 7.

Panduntur; sævis avidus dolor involat alis,
Atque audax mentem scrutator, et ilia mordet.
Interea Servator ovat, victorque doloris

*

Eminet, illustri + perfusus membra cruore,
Exultatque miser fieri; nam fortiùs illum
Urget patris honos, et non vincenda voluptas
Servandi miseros sontes. O nobilis ardor
Pœnarum! O quid non mortalia pectora cogis
Durus amor? Quid non coelestia ?-

At subidat phantasia, vanescant imagines-nescio quo me proripuit amens Mnsa: volui quatuor lineas pedibus astringere, et ecce! numeri crescunt in immensum, dumque concitato genio laxavi fræena, vereor ne juvenilis impetus theologiam læserit, et audax nimis imaginatio, Plura è volui, sed turgidi et crescentes versûs noluêre plura, et coarctârunt scriptionis limites. Vale, amice frater, et in studio pietatis et artis medicae strenuus decurre.