I to Day's soft-eyed sister pay my court (Endymion's rival!), and her aid implore; Now first implored in succour to the Muse.

Thou, who didst lately borrow[11] Cynthia's form, And modestly forego thine own! O thou, 30 Who didst thyself at midnight hours inspire!

Say, why not Cynthia patroness of song?

As thou her crescent, she thy character a.s.sumes; still more a G.o.ddess by the change.

Are there demurring wits, who dare dispute This revolution in the world inspired?

Ye train Pierian! to the lunar sphere, In silent hour address your ardent call For aid immortal; less her brother's right.

She, with the spheres harmonious, nightly leads 40 The mazy dance, and hears their matchless strain; A strain for G.o.ds, denied to mortal ear.

Transmit it heard, thou silver Queen of Heaven!

What t.i.tle, or what name, endears thee most?

Cynthia! Cyllene! Phoebe!--or dost hear With higher gust, fair P----d of the skies?

Is that the soft enchantment calls thee down, More powerful than of old Circean charm?

Come; but from heavenly banquets with thee bring The soul of song, and whisper in my ear 50 The theft divine; or in propitious dreams (For dreams are thine) transfuse it through the breast 52 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; A theme so like thee, a quite lunar theme, Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair!

A theme that rose all pale, and told my soul, 'Twas Night; on her fond hopes perpetual night; A night which struck a damp, a deadlier damp, 60 Than that which smote me from Philander's tomb.

Narcissa[12] follows, ere his tomb is closed.

Woes cl.u.s.ter; rare are solitary woes; They love a train, they tread each other's heel; Her death invades his mournful right, and claims The grief that started from my lids for him: Seizes the faithless, alienated tear, Or shares it, ere it falls. So frequent Death, Sorrow he more than causes, he confounds; For human sighs his rival strokes contend, 70 And make distress, distraction. Oh, Philander!

What was thy fate? A double fate to me; Portent, and pain! a menace, and a blow!

Like the black raven hovering o'er my peace, Not less a bird of omen, than of prey.

It call'd Narcissa long before her hour; It call'd her tender soul, by break of bliss, From the first blossom, from the buds of joy; Those few our noxious fate unblasted leaves In this inclement clime of human life. 80 Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!

And young as beautiful! and soft as young!

And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!

And happy (if aught happy here) as good!

For fortune fond had built her nest on high. 85 Like birds quite exquisite of note and plume, Transfix'd by fate (who loves a lofty mark), How from the summit of the grove she fell, And left it unharmonious! all its charms Extinguish'd in the wonders of her song!

Her song still vibrates in my ravish'd ear, Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain (O to forget her!) thrilling through my heart! 93 Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy! this group Of bright ideas, flowers of paradise, As yet unforfeit! in one blaze we bind, Kneel, and present it to the skies; as all We guess of heaven: and these were all her own.

And she was mine; and I was--was!--most blest!-- Gay t.i.tle of the deepest misery! 100 As bodies grow more ponderous, robb'd of life; Good lost weighs more in grief, than gain'd, in joy.

Like blossom'd trees o'erturn'd by vernal storm, Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay; And if in death still lovely, lovelier there; Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.

And will not the severe excuse a sigh?

Scorn the proud man that is ashamed to weep; Our tears indulged, indeed deserve our shame.

Ye that e'er lost an angel! pity me. 110 Soon as the l.u.s.tre languish'd in her eye, Dawning a dimmer day on human sight; And on her cheek, the residence of spring, Pale omen sat; and scatter'd fears around On all that saw; (and who would cease to gaze, That once had seen?) with haste, parental haste, I flew, I s.n.a.t.c.h'd her from the rigid north, Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew, And bore her nearer to the sun;[13] the sun 119 (As if the sun could envy) check'd his beam, Denied his wonted succour; nor with more Regret beheld her drooping, than the bells Of lilies; fairest lilies, not so fair!

Queen lilies! and ye painted populace!

Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrosial lives; In morn and evening dew your beauties bathe, And drink the sun; which gives your cheeks to glow, And out-blush (mine excepted) every fair; You gladlier grew, ambitious of her hand, Which often cropp'd your odours, incense meet 130 To thought so pure! Ye lovely fugitives!

Coeval race with man! for man you smile; Why not smile at him too? You share indeed His sudden pa.s.s; but not his constant pain.

So man is made, nought ministers delight, By what his glowing pa.s.sions can engage; And glowing pa.s.sions, bent on aught below, Must, soon or late, with anguish turn the scale; And anguish, after rapture, how severe!

Rapture? Bold man! who tempts the wrath divine, 140 By plucking fruit denied to mortal taste, While here, presuming on the rights of heaven.

For transport dost thou call on every hour, Lorenzo? At thy friend's expense be wise; Lean not on earth; 'twill pierce thee to the heart; A broken reed, at best; but, oft, a spear; On its sharp point peace bleeds, and hope expires.

Turn, hopeless thought! turn from her:--thought repell'd Resenting rallies, and wakes every woe.

s.n.a.t.c.h'd ere thy prime! and in thy bridal hour! 150 And when kind fortune, with thy lover, smiled! 151 And when high flavour'd thy fresh opening joys!

And when blind man p.r.o.nounced thy bliss complete!

And on a foreign sh.o.r.e; where strangers wept!

Strangers to thee; and, more surprising still, Strangers to kindness, wept: their eyes let fall Inhuman tears: strange tears! that trickled down From marble hearts! obdurate tenderness!

A tenderness that call'd them more severe; In spite of nature's soft persuasion, steel'd; 160 While nature melted, superst.i.tion raved; That mourn'd the dead; and this denied a grave.

Their sighs incensed; sighs foreign to the will!

Their will the tiger suck'd, outraged the storm.

For oh! the cursed unG.o.dliness of zeal!

While sinful flesh relented, spirit nursed In blind infallibility's embrace, The sainted spirit petrified the breast; Denied the charity of dust, to spread O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy. 170 What could I do? what succour? what resource?

With pious sacrilege, a grave I stole; With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd; Short in my duty; coward in my grief!

More like her murderer, than friend, I crept, With soft-suspended step, and m.u.f.fled deep In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh.

I whisper'd what should echo through their realms; Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies.

Presumptuous fear! How durst I dread her foes, 180 While nature's loudest dictates I obey'd?

Pardon necessity, bless'd shade! of grief And indignation rival bursts I pour'd; Half execration mingled with my prayer; Kindled at man, while I his G.o.d adored; 185 Sore grudged the savage land her sacred dust; Stamp'd the cursed soil; and with humanity (Denied Narcissa) wish'd them all a grave.

Glows my resentment into guilt? What guilt Can equal violations of the dead?

The dead how sacred! Sacred is the dust Of this heaven-labour'd form, erect, divine! 192 This heaven-a.s.sumed majestic robe of earth, He deign'd to wear, who hung the vast expanse With azure bright, and clothed the sun in gold.

When every pa.s.sion sleeps that can offend; When strikes us every motive that can melt; When man can wreak his rancour uncontroll'd, That strongest curb on insult and ill-will; Then, spleen to dust? the dust of innocence? 200 An angel's dust?--This Lucifer transcends; When he contended for the patriarch's bones, 'Twas not the strife of malice, but of pride; The strife of pontiff pride, not pontiff gall.

Far less than this is shocking in a race Most wretched, but from streams of mutual love; And uncreated, but for love divine; And, but for love divine, this moment, lost, By fate resorb'd, and sunk in endless night.

Man hard of heart to man! of horrid things 210 Most horrid! 'mid stupendous, highly strange!

Yet oft his courtesies are smoother wrongs; Pride brandishes the favours He confers, And contumelious his humanity: What then his vengeance? Hear it not, ye stars!

And thou, pale moon! turn paler at the sound; Man is to man the sorest, surest ill.

A previous blast foretells the rising storm; O'erwhelming turrets threaten ere they fall; 219 Volcanos bellow ere they disembogue; Earth trembles ere her yawning jaws devour; And smoke betrays the wide-consuming fire: Ruin from man is most conceal'd when near, And sends the dreadful tidings in the blow.

Is this the flight of fancy? Would it were!

Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings, but himself, That hideous sight, a naked human heart.

Fired is the Muse? And let the Muse be fired: Who not inflamed, when what he speaks, he feels, And in the nerve most tender, in his friends? 230 Shame to mankind! Philander had his foes; He felt the truths I sing, and I in him.

But he, nor I, feel more: past ills, Narcissa!

Are sunk in thee, thou recent wound of heart!

Which bleeds with other cares, with other pangs; Pangs numerous, as the numerous ills that swarm'd O'er thy distinguish'd fate, and, cl.u.s.tering there Thick as the locusts on the land of Nile, Made death more deadly, and more dark the grave.

Reflect (if not forgot my touching tale) 240 How was each circ.u.mstance with aspics arm'd?

An aspic, each! and all, a hydra woe: What strong Herculean virtue could suffice?-- Or is it virtue to be conquer'd here?

This h.o.a.ry cheek a train of tears bedews; And each tear mourns its own distinct distress; And each distress, distinctly mourn'd, demands Of grief still more, as heighten'd by the whole.

A grief like this proprietors excludes: Not friends alone such obsequies deplore; 250 They make mankind the mourner; carry sighs Far as the fatal fame can wing her way; And turn the gayest thought of gayest age, 253 Down their right channel, through the vale of death.

The vale of death! that hush'd Cimmerian vale, Where darkness, brooding o'er unfinish'd fates With raven wing inc.u.mbent, waits the day (Dread day!) that interdicts all future change!

That subterranean world, that land of ruin!

Fit walk, Lorenzo, for proud human thought!

There let my thought expatiate, and explore 261 Balsamic truths, and healing sentiments, Of all most wanted, and most welcome, here.

For gay Lorenzo's sake, and for thy own, My soul! "the fruits of dying friends survey; Expose the vain of life; weigh life and death; Give death his eulogy; thy fear subdue; And labour that first palm of n.o.ble minds, A manly scorn of terror from the tomb."

This harvest reap from thy Narcissa's grave. 270 As poets feign'd from Ajax' streaming blood Arose, with grief inscribed, a mournful flower; Let wisdom blossom from my mortal wound.

And first, of dying friends; what fruit from these?

It brings us more than triple aid; an aid To chase our thoughtlessness, fear, pride, and guilt.

Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud, To damp our brainless ardours; and abate That glare of life, which often blinds the wise.

Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth 280 Our rugged pa.s.s to death; to break those bars Of terror, and abhorrence, nature throws Cross our obstructed way; and, thus to make Welcome, as safe, our port from every storm.

Each friend by fate s.n.a.t.c.h'd from us, is a plume Pluck'd from the wing of human vanity, Which makes us stoop from our aerial heights, 287 And, damp'd with omen of our own decease, On drooping pinions of ambition lower'd, Just skim earth's surface, ere we break it up, O'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust, And save the world a nuisance. Smitten friends Are angels sent on errands full of love; For us they languish, and for us they die: And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain?

Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hovering shades, Which wait the revolution in our hearts?

Shall we disdain their silent soft address; Their posthumous advice, and pious prayer?

Senseless, as herds that graze their hallow'd graves, 300 Tread under foot their agonies and groans; Frustrate their anguish, and destroy their deaths?

Lorenzo! no; the thought of death indulge; Give it its wholesome empire! let it reign, That kind chastiser of thy soul in joy!

Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far, And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast: Auspicious era! golden days, begin!

The thought of death shall, like a G.o.d, inspire.

And why not think on death? Is life the theme 310 Of every thought? and wish of every hour?

And song of every joy? Surprising truth!

The beaten spaniel's fondness not so strange.

To wave the numerous ills that seize on life As their own property, their lawful prey; Ere man has measured half his weary stage, His luxuries have left him no reserve, No maiden relishes, unbroach'd delights; On cold served repet.i.tions he subsists, And in the tasteless present chews the past; 320 Disgusted chews, and scarce can swallow down. 321 Like lavish ancestors, his earlier years Have disinherited his future hours, Which starve on orts, and glean their former field.

Live ever here, Lorenzo?--shocking thought!

So shocking, they who wish, disown it too; Disown from shame what they from folly crave.

Live ever in the womb, nor see the light?

For what live ever here?--With labouring step To tread our former footsteps? pace the round 330 Eternal? to climb life's worn, heavy wheel, Which draws up nothing new? to beat, and beat The beaten track? to bid each wretched day The former mock? to surfeit on the same, And yawn our joys? or thank a misery For change, though sad? to see what we have seen?

Hear, till unheard, the same old slabber'd tale?

To taste the tasted, and at each return Less tasteful? o'er our palates to decant Another vintage? strain a flatter year, 340 Through loaded vessels, and a laxer tone?

Crazy machines to grind earth's wasted fruits!

Ill-ground, and worse concocted! load, not life!

The rational foul kennels of excess!

Still-streaming thoroughfares of dull debauch!

Trembling each gulp, lest death should s.n.a.t.c.h the bowl.