Here nectar flows; it sparkles in our sight: 590 595 Think'st thou the theme intoxicates my song? Am I too warm?--Too warm I cannot be. I loved him much, but now I love him more. Like birds, whose beauties languish, half conceal'd, Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes Expanded, shine with azure, green, and gold; How blessings brighten as they take their fight! €00 His flight Philander took, his upward flight, If ever soul ascended. Had he dropp'd, (That eagle genius!) O had he let fall One feather as he flew, I then had wrote What friends might flatter, prudent foes forbear, C03 To quench a glory lighted at the skies, And cast in shadows his illustrious closo. Strange the theme most affecting, most sublimo, G10 Man's highest triumph, man's profoundest fall, And glory tempts, and inclination calls. 615 Dare I presume, then? but Philander bids, 620 Yet am I struck, as struck the soul beneath Or in some mighty ruin's solemn shade, Or gazing, by pale lamps, ou highborn dust In vaults, thin courts of poor unflatter'd kings, 625 Or at the midnight altar's hallow'd flame. And enter, awed, the ten pie of my theme. Is it his deathbed? No; it is his shrine Behold him there just rising to a god. The chamber where the good man meets his fate Is privileged beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of Heaven. Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe, Receive the blessing, and adore the chance That threw in this Bethesda your disease: If unrestored by this, despair your cure; For here resistless Demonstration dwells. A deathbed 's a detector of the heart! Here tired Dissimulation drops her mask, Through Life's grimace that mistress of the scene! Here real and apparent are the same. You see the man, you see his hold on Heaven, If sound his virtue, as Philander's sound. 630 635 610 Heaven waits not the last moment; owns her friends On this side death, and points them out to men; 646 A lecture silent, but of sovereign power! To Vice confusion, and to Virtue peace. 650 A wrench from all we love! from all we arc. 655 659 And, oh the last, the last; what? (can words express, (Like the stars struggling through this midnight gloom) Richer than Mammon's for his single heir. 670 How our hearts burn'd within us at the scene 675 Whence this brave bound o'er limits fix'd to man? His final hour brings glory to his God! Man's glory Heaven vouchsafes to call her own. 635 As some tall tower, or lofty mountain's brow, At that black hour which general horror sheds Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and humble joy Destruction gild and crown him for the skies, 690 NIGHT III. Narcissa. TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF PORTLAND. Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes. VIRG. FROM dreams, where thought in Fancy's maze runs mad, Once more I wake; and at the destined hour, I keep my assignation with my woe. O! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought, 10 Now woo them, wed them, bind them to thy breast: 15 To win thy wish creation has no more: Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend. But friends how mortal! dangerous the desire. Take Phoebus to yourselves, ye basking bards! 20 25 Where Sense runs savage, broke from Reason's chain, Thou who didst lately borrow Cynthia's* form, And modestly forego thine own: O thou 30 Who didst thyself, at midnight hours, inspire! As thou her crescent, she thy character The mazy dance, and hears their matchless strain, Transmit it heard, thou silver queen of Heaven' 45 50 (For dreams are thine) tranfuse it through the breast Of thy first votary-but not thy last, If, like thy namesake, thou art ever kind. And kind thou wilt be, kind on such a theme ; 55 A theme so like thee, a quite lunar theme, Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair! A theme that rose all pale, and told my soul "At the Duke of Norfolk's masquerade. |