Gilding the roof, then dropt into the sea,
And sudden night devour'd the sweet remains of day;
Thus the bright youth just rear'd his shining head
From th' obscure shades of life, and sunk among the dead.
The rising sun, adorn'd with all his light,
Smiles on these walls again: but endless night
Reigns uncontrol'd where the dear Gunston lies,
He's set for ever, and must never rise.
Then why the beams, unseasonable star,
These lightsome smiles descending from afar,
To greet a mourning house? In vain the day
Breaks thro' the windows with a joyful ray,
And marks a shining path along the floors,
Bounding the evening and the morning hours ;
In vain it bounds 'em: while vast emptiness
And hollow silence reigns thro' all the place,
Nor heeds the cheerful change of nature's face.
Yet nature's wheels will on without control,
The sun will rise, the tuneful spheres will roll,
And the two nightly bears walk round and watch the pole.
See, while I speak, high on her sable wheel
Old night advancing, climbs the eastern hill:
Troops of dark clouds prepare her way; behold,
How their brown pinions, edg'd with evening gold,
Spread shadowing o'er the house, and glide away,
Slowly pursuing the declining day;
O'er the broad roof they fly their circuit still,
Thus days before they did, and days to come they will;
But the black cloud that shadows o'er his eyes,
Hangs there unmoveable, and never flies:
Fain would I bid the envious gloom be gone,
Ah fruitless wish! how are his curtains drawn
For a long evening that despairs the dawn!
Muse, view the turret: just beneath the skies
Lonesome it stands, and fixes my sad eyes,
As it would ask a tear. O sacred seat,
Sacred to friendship! O divine retreat!
Here did I hope my happy hours t' employ,
And fed before-hand on the promis'd joy.
When weary of the noisy town, my friend
From mortal cares retiring, should ascend
And lead me thither. We alone would sit,
Free and secure of all intruding feet:
Our thoughts should stretch their longest wings, and rise,
Nor bound their soarings by the lower skies:
Our tongues should aim at everlasting themes,
And speak what mortals dare, of all the names
Of boundless joys and glories, thrones and seats
Built high in heav'n for souls. We'd trace the streets
Of golden pavement, walk each blissful field,
And climb and taste the fruits the spicy mountains yield:
Then would we swear to keep the sacred road,
And walk right upwards to that blest abode ;
We'd charge our parting spirits there to meet,
There hand in hand approach th' almighty seat,
And bend our heads adoring at our Maker's feet.
Thus should we mount on bold advent'rous wings
In high discourse, and dwell on heav'nly things.
While the pleas'd hours in sweet succession move,
And minutes, measur'd as they are above,
By ever-circling joys, and ever-shining love.
Anon our thoughts shou'd lower their lofty flight
Sink by degrees, and take a pleasing sight,
A large round prospect of the spreading plain,
The wealthy river, and his winding train,
The smoky city, and the busy men.
How we should smile to see degenerate worms
Lavish their lives, and fight for airy forms
Of painted honour, dreams of empty sound,
Till envy rise, and shoot a secret wound
At swelling glory, straight the bubble breaks,
And the scenes vanish, as the man awakes;
Then the tall titles insolent and proud
Sink to the dust, and mingle with the crowd.
Man is a restless thing: Still vain and wild,
Lives beyond sixty, nor outgrows the child:
His hurrying lusts still break the sacred bound
To seek new pleasures on forbidden ground,
And buy them all too dear. Unthinking fool,
For a short dying joy to sell a deathless soul!
'Tis but a grain of sweetness they can sow,
And reap the long sad harvest of immortal woe.
Another tribe toil in a different strife,
And banish all the lawful sweets of life,
To sweat and dig for gold, to hoard the ore,
Hide the dear dust yet darker than before,
And never dare to use a grain of all the store.
Happy the man that knows the value just
Of earthly things, nor is enslav'd to dust.
"Tis a rich gift the skies but rarely send
To fav'rite souls. Then happy thou, my friend,
For thou hadst learnt to manage and command
The wealth that heav'n bestow'd with liberal hand:
Hence this fair structure rose; and hence this seat,
Made to invite my not unwilling feet:
In vain 'twas made! for we shall never meet,
And smile, and love, and bless each other here;
The envious tomb forbids thy face t' appear,
Detains thee, Gunston, from my longing eyes,
And all my hopes lie bury'd where my Gunston lies.
Come hither, all ye tend'rest souls, that know
The heights of fondness, and the depths of woe;
Young mothers, who your darling babes have found
Untimely murder'd with a ghastly wound;
Ye frighted nymphs, who on the bridal bed
Clasp'd in your arms your lovers cold and dead;
Come, in the pomp of all your wild despair,
With flowing eye-lids, and disorder'd hair,
Death in your looks; come, mingle grief with me,
And drown your little streams in my unbounded sea.
You sacred mourners of a nobler mould,
Born for a friend, whose dear embraces hold
Beyond all nature's ties; you that have known
Two happy souls made intimately one,
And felt a parting stroke: "Tis you must tell
The smart, the twinges, and the racks I feel
This soul of mine that dreadful wound has borne,
Off from its side its dearest half is torn,
The rest lies bleeding, and but lives to mourn.
O infinite distress! such raging grief
Should command pity, and despair relief.
Passion, methinks, should rise from all my groans,
Give sense to rocks, and sympathy to stones.
Ye dusky woods and echoing hills around,
Repeat my cries with a perpetual sound:
Be all ye flow'ry vales with thorns o'ergrown,
Assist my sorrows, and declare your own;
Alas! your lord is dead. The humble plain
Must ne'er receive his courteous feet again.
Mourn, ye gay smiling meadows, and be seen
In wintry robes, instead of youthful green;
And bid the brook, that still runs warbling by,
Move silent on, and weep his useless channel dry.
Hither methinks the lowing herd should come,
And moaning turtles murmur o'er his tomb :
The oak shall wither, and the curling bine
Weep his young life out, while his arms untwine
Their amorous folds, and mix his bleeding soul with mine.
Ye stately elms, in your long order mourn*,
Strip off your pride to dress your master's urn:
Here gently drop your leaves, instead of tears:
Ye elms, the reverend growth of ancient years,
Stand tall and naked to the blustering rage
Of the mad winds: thus it becomes your age
To shew your sorrows. Often ye have seen
Our heads reclin'd upon the rising green;
Beneath your sacred shade diffus'd we lay,
Here Friendship reign'd with an unbounded sway:
Hither our souls their constant off'rings brought,
The burdens of the breast and labours of the thought:
Our opening bosoms on the conscious ground
Spread all the sorrows and the joys we found
And mingled ev'ry care; nor was it known
Which of the pains and pleasures were our own ;
Then with an equal band and honest soul
We share the heap, yet both possess the whole,
And all the passions there thro' both our bosoms roll;
By turns we comfort, and by turns complain,
And bear and ease by turns the sympathy of pain.
Friendship! mysterious thing, what magic pow'rs
Support thy sway, and charm these minds of ours?
Bound to thy foot we boast our birth-right still,
And dream of freedom, when we've lest our will,
And chang'd away our souls: Atthy command
We snatch new mis'ries from a foreign hand,
To call them ours; and, thoughtless of our ease,
Plague the dear self that we were born to please.
Thou tyranness of minds whose cruel throne
Heaps on poor mortals sorrows not their own;
As though our mother nature could no more
Find woes sufficient for each sou she bore,
Friendship divides the shares, and lengthens out the store.
• There was a long row of tall elms then standing where some years after the lower garden was made.
Yet are we fond of thine imperious reign,
Proud of thy slavery, wanton in our pain,
And chide the courteous hand when death dissolves the chain.
Virtue, forgive the thought! the raving muse
Wild and despairing knows not what she does,
Grows mad in grief, and in her savage
hours
Affronts the name she loves and she adores.
She is thy vot'ress too; and at thy shrine,
O sacred Friendship, offer'd songs divine,
While Gunston liv'd, and both our souls were thine.
Here to these shades at solemn hours we came,
To pay devotion with a mutual flame,
Partners in bliss. Sweet lux'ry of the mind!
And sweet the aids of sense! Each ruder wind
Slept in its caverns, while an evening-breeze
Fann'd the leaves gently, sporting thro' the trees;
The linnet and the lark their vespers sung,
And clouds of crimson o'er th' horizon hung;
The slow-declining sun, with sloping wheels,
Sunk down the golden day behind the western hills.
Mourn, ye young gardens, ye unfinish'd gates,
Ye green inclosures, and ye growing sweets
Lament, for ye our midnight hours have known,
And watch'd us walking by the silent moon,
In conference divine, while heav'nly fire
Kindling our breasts, did all our thoughts inspire
With joys almost immortal; then our zeal
Blaz'd and burnt high to reach th' ethereal hill;
And love refined, like that above the poles,
Threw both our arms round one another's souls,
In rapture and embraces. Oh forbear,
Forbear, my song! this is too much to hear,
Too dreadful to repeat; such joys as these
Fled from the earth for ever!-
Oh for a general grief! let all things share
Our woes, that knew our loves: The neighbouring air
Let it be laden with immortal sighs,
And tell the gales, that ev'ry breath that flies
Over these fields should murmur and complain,
And kiss the fading grass, and propagate the pain.
Weep all ye buildings, and the groves around
For ever weep: this is an endless wound,
Vast and incurable. Ye buildings knew
His silver tongue, ye groves have heard it too.
At that dear sound no more shall ye rejoice,
And I no more must hear the charming voice:
Woe to my drooping soul ! that heav'nly breath
That could speak life, lies now congeal'd in death;
While on his folded lips all cold and pale
Eternal chains and heavy silence dwell.
Yet my fond hope would hear him speak again,
Once more, at least, one gentle word, and then
Gunston aloud I call: In vain I cry
Gunston aloud; for he must ne'er reply.
In vain I mourn, and drop these funeral tears,
Death and the grave have neither eyes nor ears:
Wand'ring I tune my sorrows to the groves,
And vent my swelling griefs, and tell the winds our loves;
While the dear youth sleeps fast, and hears them pot:
He bath forgot me: In the lonesome vault,
Mindless of Watts and friendship, cold he lies,
Deaf and unthinking clay.-
But whither am I led? this artless grief
Hurries the muse on, obstinate and deaf
To all the nicer rules, and bears her down
From the tall fabric to the neighbouring ground;
The pleasing hours, the happy moments past
In these sweet fields, reviving on my taste,
Snatch me away resistless with impetuous haste.
Spread thy strong pinions once again, my song,
And reach the turret thou hast left so long:
O'er the wide roofs its lofty head it rears,
Long waiting our converse; but only hears
The noisy tumults of the realms on high;
The winds salute it whistling as they fly,
Or jarring round the windows: rattling showers
Lash the fair sides; above loud thunder roars;
But still the master sleeps; nor hears the voice
Of sacred friendship, nor the tempest's noise :
An iron slumber sits on every sense,
In vain the heav'nly thunders strive to rouse it thence.
One labour more, my muse, the golden sphere
Seems to demand: See thro' the dusky air
Downward it shines upon the rising moon;
And, as she labours up to reach her noon,
Pursues her orb with repercussive light,
And streaming gold repays the paler beams of night
But not one ray can reach the darksome grave,
Or pierce the solid gloom that fills the cave
Where Gunston dwells in death. Behold it flames
Like some new meteor with diffusive beams
Thro' the mid-heaven, and overcomes the stars;
"So shines thy Gunston's soul above the spheres,"
Raphael replies, and wipes away my tears:
"We saw the flesh sink down with closing eyes,
"We heard thy grief shriek out, He dies, He dies;
"Mistaken grief! to call the flesh the friend!"
"On our fair wings did the bright youth ascend,
"All heav'n embrac'd him with immortal love,
"And sung his welcome to the courts above;
"Gentle Ithuriel led him round the skies,
"The buildings struck him with immense surprise;
"The spires all radiant, and the mansions bright,
"The roof high vaulted with ethereal light:
"Beauty and strength on the tall bulwarks sat
"In heav'nly diamond; and for every gate
"On golden hinges a broad ruby turns,
"Guards of the foe, and as it moves it burns;
"Millions of glories reign thro' every part;
"Infinite power, and uncreated art
"Stand here display'd, and to the stranger show
"How it out-shines the noblest seats below.
"The stranger fed his gazing pow'rs awhile,
"Transported: Then, with a regardless smile,
"Glanc'd his eyes downward thro' the crystal floor,
"And took eternal leave of what he built before."
Now, fair Urania, leave the doleful strain ;
Raphael commands: Assume thy joys again :
In everlasting numbers sing, and say,
"Gunston has mov'd his dwelling to the realms of day:
“Gunston the friend lives still;" And give thy groans away
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