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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 snatch

the bowl.

Such of our fine ones is the wish refined! So would they have it: elegant desire ! Why not invite the bellowing stalls and wilds? But such examples might their riot awe.

Through want of virtue, that is, want of thought, (Though on bright Thought they father all their flights)

To what are they reduced? to love and hate
The same vain world; to censure and espouse
This painted shrew of life, who calls them fool
Each moment of each day; to flatter bad,
Through dread of worse; to cling to this rude rock,
Barren to them of good, and sharp with ills,
And hourly blacken'd with impending storms,
And infamous for wrecks of human hope-
Scared at the gloomy gulf that yawns beneath.
Such are their triumphs! such their pangs of joy!

'Tis time, high time, to shift this dismal scene.
This hugg'd, this hideous state, what art can cure?
One only, but that one what all may reach:
Virtue-she, wonder-working goddess! charms
That rock to bloom, and tames the painted shrew;
And what will more surprise, Lorenzo! gives
To life's sick, nauseous iteration, change;
And straighten's Nature's circle to a line.
Believest thou this, Lorenzo? lend an ear,
A patient ear; thou'lt blush, to disbelieve,
A languid, leaden iteration reigns,

And ever must, o'er those whose joys are joys

rays.

Of sight, smell, taste. The cuckoo-seasons sing
The same dull note to such as nothing prize
But what those seasons, from the teeming earth,
To doting sense indulge: but nobler minds,
Which relish fruits unripen'd by the Sun,
Make their days various; various as the dyes
On the dove's neck, which wanton in his
On minds of dove-like innocence possess'd,
On lighten'd minds, that bask in Virtue's beams,
Nothing hangs tedious, nothing old revolves
In that for which they long, for which they live.
Their glorious efforts, wing'd with heavenly hope,
Each rising morning sees still higher rise;
Each bounteous dawn its novelty presents
To worth maturing, new strength, lustre, fame;
While Nature's circle, like a chariot-wheel
Rolling beneath their elevated aims,
Makes their fair prospect fairer every hour,
Advancing virtue in a line to bliss ;

Virtue, which Christian motives best inspire;
And bliss, which Christian schemes alone ensure!
And shall we then, for Virtue's sake, commence
Apostate, and turn infidels for joy?

A truth it is few doubt, but fewer trust,

He sins against this life, who slights the next.'
What is this life? how few their favourite know!
Fond in the dark, and blind in our embrace,
By passionately loving Life, we make
Loved Life unlovely, hugging her to death.
We give to time eternity's regard,

And dreaming, take our passage for our port.
Life has no value as an end, but means;

An end deplorable! a means divine!

When 'tis our all, 'tis nothing: worse than nought;

A nest of pains: when held as nothing, much.
Like some fair humourists, life is most enjoy'd
When courted least; most worth when dis-
esteem'd ;

Then 'tis the seat of comfort rich in peace;
In prospect richer far; important! awful!
Not to be mention'd but with shouts of praise!
Not to be thought on but with tides of joy!
The mighty basis of eternal bliss!

Where now the barren rock? the painted shrew?
Where now, Lorenzo, life's eternal round?
Have I not made my triple promise good?
Vain is the world, but only to the vain,
To what compare we then this varying scene,
Whose worth, ambiguous, rises and declines,
Waxes and wanes? (in all propitious Night
Assists me here) compare it to the moon;
Dark in herself, and indigent, but rich
In borrow'd lustre from a higher sphere.
When gross guilt interposes, labouring Earth,
O'ershadow'd, mourns a deep eclipse of joy;
Her joys, at brightest, pallid to that font
Of full effulgent glory whence they flow.
Nor is that glory distant. Oh, Lorenzo!
A good man and an angel! these between
How thin the barrier! what divides their fate?
Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year;
Or if an age, it is a moment still;

A moment, or Eternity's forgot.

Then be what once they were who now are gods;
Be what Philander was, and claim the skies.
Starts timid Nature at the gloomy pass?
The soft transition call it, and be cheer'd:
Such it is often, and why not to thee?

And may

To hope the best is pious, brave, and wise,
itself procure what it presumes.
Life is much flatter'd, Death is much traduced;
Compare the rivals, and the kinder crown.
Strange competition!'-True, Lorenzo! strange!
So little life can cast into the scale.

Life makes the soul dependent on the dust, Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres. Through chinks, styled organs, dim life peeps at light;

Death bursts the' involving cloud, and all is day:
All all ear,
the disembodied power.
eye,
Death has feign'd evils Nature shall not feel;
Life, ills substantial wisdom cannot shun.
Is not the mighty mind, that sun of Heaven!
By tyrant Life dethroned, imprison'd, pain'd?
By Death enlarged, ennobled, deified?
Death but entombs the body, life the soul.

'Is Death then guiltless? How he marks his way
With dreadful waste of what deserves to shine!
Art, Genius, Fortune, elevated power!
With various lustres these light up the world,
Which Death put out, and darkens human race.?
I grant, Lorenzo! this indictment just:
The sage, peer, potentate, king, conqueror !
Death humbles these; more barbarous Life, the

man.

Life is the triumph of our mouldering clay ;
Death of the spirit infinite! divine!

Death has no dread but what frail Life imparts,
Nor Life true joy but what kind Death improves.
No bliss has Life to boast, till Death can give
Far greater.
Life's a debtor to the grave;
Dark lattice! letting in eternal day.

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