Of being so high the pleasure is but small,
But long the ruin, if I chance to fall.

Let me in some sweet shade serenely lie,
Happy in leisure and obscurity!

Whilst others place their joys

In popularity and noise,

Let my soft minutes glide obscurely on,
Like subterraneous streams, unheard, unknown.

Thus, when my days are all in silence past,
A good plain countryman I'll die at last.
Death cannot choose but be

To him a mighty misery,

Who to the world was popularly known,
And dies a stranger to himself alone.

THE MEDITATION.

It must be done, my soul, but 'tis a strange,
A dismal and mysterious change,

When thou shalt leave this tenement of clay,
And to an unknown somewhere wing away;
When time shall be eternity, and thou

Shalt be thou know'st not what, and live thou know'st not how.

Amazing state! No wonder that we dread
To think of death, or view the dead.
Thou'rt all wrapp'd up in clouds, as if to thee
Our very knowledge had antipathy.

Death could not a more sad retinue find

Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.

Some courteous ghost, tell this great secresy,
What 'tis you are, and we must be.

You warn us of approaching death, and why
May we not know from you what 'tis to die?
But you, having shot the gulf, delight to see
Succeeding souls plunge in with like uncertainty.

When life's close knot, by writ from destiny,
Disease shall cut, or age untie;

When after some delays, some dying strife,
The soul stands shivering on the ridge of life;
With what a dreadful curiosity

Does she launch out into the sea of vast eternity!

So when the spacious globe was delug'd o'er,
And lower holds could save no more,

On the utmost bough the astonish'd sinners stood,
And view'd th' advances of th' encroaching flood;
O'ertopp'd at length by th' element's increase,
With horror they resign'd to the untried abyss.

HYMN TO DARKNESS.

HAIL, thou most sacred, venerable thing!
What muse is worthy thee to sing?

Thee, from whose pregnant, universal womb
All things, even light, thy rival, first did come.
What dares he not attempt that sings of thee,
Thou first and greatest mystery?

Who can the secrets of thy essence tell?
Thou, like the light of God, art inaccessible.

Before great Love this monument did raise,
This ample theatre of praise;
Before the folding circles of the sky
Were tun'd by him who is all harmony;
Before the morning stars their hymn began,
Before the council held for man,

Before the birth of either time or place,
Thou reign'st unquestion'd monarch in the empty
space.

Thy native lot thou didst to light resign,
But still half of the globe is thine.

Here with a quiet, but yet awful hand,
Like the best emperors thou dost command.
To thee the stars above their brightness owe,
And mortals their repose below;

To thy protection fear and sorrow flee,

And those that weary are of light, find rest in thee.

Though light and glory be the Almighty's throne,
Darkness is his pavilion;

From that his radiant beauty, but from thee
He has his terror and his majesty :

Thus, when he first proclaimed his sacred law,
And would his rebel subjects awe,

Like princes on some great solemnity,

H' appear'd in's robes of state, and clad himself with thee.

The bless'd above do thy sweet umbrage prize,

When, cloy'd with light, they veil their eyes; The vision of the Deity is made

More sweet and beatific by thy shade;
But we, poor tenants of this orb below,
Don't here thy excellencies know

Till death our understandings does improve, And then our wiser ghosts thy silent night-walks love.

But thee I now admire, thee would I choose
For my religion, or my muse.

'Tis hard to tell whether thy reverend shade
Has more good votaries or poets made:
From thy dark caves were inspirations given,

And from thick groves went vows to Heaven. Hail, then, thou muse's and devotion's spring, "Tis just we should adore, 'tis just we should thee sing.

THE COMPLAINT.

WELL, 'tis a dull perpetual round, Which here we silly mortals tread; Here's nought, I'll swear, worth living to be found, I wonder how 'tis with the dead. Better, I hope, or else, ye powers divine, Unmake me; I my immortality resign.

Still to be vex'd by joys delay'd,
Or by fruition to be cloy'd;

Still to be wearied in a fruitless chase,
Yet still to run, and lose the race;

Still our departed pleasures to lament,
Which yet, when present, gave us no content:-

Is this the thing we so extol,

For which we would prolong our breath?

Do we for this long life a blessing call,

And tremble at the name of death?

Sots that we are, to think by that we gain
Which is as well retain'd as lost with pain.

Is it for this that we adore
Physicians, and their art implore?
Do we bless nature's liberal supply
Of helps against mortality?

Sure 'tis but vain the tree of life to boast,
When paradise, wherein it grew, is lost.

Ye powers, why did you man create
With such insatiable desire?

If you'd endow him with no more estate,

You should have made him less aspire : But now our appetites you vex and cheat With real hunger, and fantastic meat.

THE SIXTY-THIRD CHAPTER OF ISAIAH PARAPHRASED TO THE SIXTH VERSE.

A PINDARIC ODE.

STRANGE Scene of glory! am I well awake;
Or is 't my fancy's wild mistake?

It cannot be a dream; bright beams of light
Flow from the vision's face, and pierce my tender
sight-

No common vision this; I see

Some marks of more than human majesty.

Who is this mighty Hero, who,

With glories round his head, and terror in his

brow?

From Bozrah, lo! he comes: a scarlet dye

O'erspreads his clothes, and does outvie