'If Heav'n with children crowns your dwelling, As mine its bounty does with you,
In fondness fatherly excelling, Th' example you have felt pursue.'
He paus'd-for tenderly caressing The darling of his wounded heart, Looks had means only of expressing Thoughts language never could impart. Now night her mournful mantle spreading, Had rob'd with black th' horizon round, And dank dews, from her tresses shedding, With genial moisture bath'd the ground;
When back to city-follies flying
Midst Custom's slaves he liv'd resign'd, His face, array'd in smiles, denying The true complexion of his mind;
For seriously around surveying
Each character, in youth and age, Of fools betray'd and knaves betraying, That play'd upon this human stage:
(Peaceful himself and undesigning) He loath'd the scenes of guile and strife, And felt each secret wish inclining To leave this fretful farce of life.
Yet to whate'er above was fated Obediently he bow'd his soul; For, what all-bounteous Heaven created, He thought Heaven only should control.
AN ELEGY ON MAN.
BEHOLD Earth's lord, imperial man,
In ripen'd vigour gay; His outward form attentive scan, And all within survey.
Behold his plans of future life, His care, his hope, his love, Relations dear of child and wife, The dome, the lawn, the grove.
Now see within his active mind More generous passions share, Friend, neighbour, country, all his kind, By turns engage his care.
Behold him range with curious eye O'er Earth from pole to pole, And through th' illimitable sky Explore with daring soul.
Yet pass some twenty fleeting years, And all his glory flies; His languid eye is bath'd in tears, He sickens, groans, and dies.
And is this all his destin'd lot, This all his boasted sway, For ever now to be forgot, Amid the mouldering clay?
Ah, gloomy thought! ah, worse than death!
Life sickens at the sound; Better it were not draw our breath, Than run this empty round.
Hence, cheating Fancy, then away, O let us better try,
By reason's more enlighten'd ray, What 'tis indeed to die.
Observe yon mass of putrid earth, It holds an embryo-brood; Ev'n now the reptiles crawl to birth, And seek their leafy food.
Yet stay till some few suns are pass'd, Each forms a silken tomb, And seems, like man, imprison'd fast, To meet his final doom.
Yet from this silent mansion too Anon you see him rise ; No more a crawling worm to view, But tenant of the skies.
And what forbids that man should share Some more auspicious day, To range at large in open air, As light and free as they?
There was a time when life first warm'd Our flesh in shades of night, Then was th' imperfect substance form'd, And sent to view this light.
There was a time, when every sense In straiter limits dwelt, Yet each its task could then dispense, We saw, we heard, we felt.
And times there are, when through the veins
The blood forgets to flow,
Yet then a living power remains,
Though not in active show.
Times too there be, when friendly Sleep's Soft charms the Senses bind, Yet Fancy then her vigils keeps, And ranges unconfin'd.
And Reason holds her separate sway, Though all the Senses wake, And forms in Memory's storehouse play Of no material make.
What are these then, this eye, this ear, But nicer organs found, A glass to read, a trump to hear, The modes of shape, or sound?
And blows may maim, or time impair These instruments of clay,
And Death may ravish what they spare, Completing their decay.
But are these then that living pow'r That thinks, compares, and rules ? Then say a scaffold is a tow'r, A workman is his tools.
For aught appears that Death can do, That still survives his stroke, Its workings plac'd beyond our view, Its present commerce broke.
But what connexions it may find, Boots much to hope and fear; And if instruction courts the mind, 'Tis madness not to hear.
ELEGY ON THE TOMB OF SHAKSPEARE.
WHAT time the jocund rosy-bosom'd Hours Led forth the train of Phœbus and the Spring, And Zephyr mild profusely scatter'd flowers
On Earth's green mantle from his musky wing,
The Morn unbarr'd th' ambrosial gates of light, Westward the raven-pinion'd Darkness flew, The Landscape smil'd in vernal beauty bright, And to their graves the sullen ghosts withdrew
The nightingale no longer swell'd her throat With love-lorn plainings tremulous and slow, And on the wings of Silence ceas'd to float The gurgling notes of her melodious wo:
The god of sleep mysterious visions led
In gay procession, 'fore the mental eye; And my freed soul awhile her mansion fled, To try her plumes for immortality.
Through fields of air, methought I took my flight Through every clime, o'er every region pass'd, No paradise or ruin 'scap'd my sight, Hesperian garden, or Cimmerian waste.
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