Together freed, their gentle spirits fly
To scenes where love and blifs immortal reign.
WHAT beck'ning ghost, along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
'Tis the!-----but why that bleeding bofom gor'd?
Why dimly gleams the vifionary fword?
Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
Is it, in heav'n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reverfion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
Why bade ye elfe, ye pow'rs! her foul afpire
Above the vulgar flight of low defire?
Ambition firft fprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of angels and of gods:
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breafts of kings and heros glows.
Moft fouls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull fullen pris'ners in the body's cage;
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Useless, unfeen, as lamps in fepulchres;
Like eastern kings, a lazy state they keep,
And close confin'd to their own palace sleep.
From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die)
Fate fnatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,
And fep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the foul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.
"But thou, falfe gaurdian of a charge too good,
Thou mean deferter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks, now fading at the blast of death;
Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Thus, if eternal Juftice rules the ball,
Thus fhall your wives, and thus your children fall:
On all the line a fudden vengeance waits,
And frequent herses shall befiege your gates;
There paffengers shall stand, and pointing say,
(While the long fun'rals blacken all the way)
Lo! these were they, whose souls the furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pafs the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageants of a day!
whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others good, or melt at others woe.
What can atone (oh ever injur'd shade !)
Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid?
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier:
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honour'd and by strangers mourn'd!
What though no friends in fable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances, and the public show?
What though no weeping loves thy afhes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face?
What though no facred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet fhall thy grave with rifing flow'rs be drefs'd,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their filver wings o'ershade
The ground, now facred by thy relics made.
So peaceful refts, without a stone, a name, What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame. How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of duft alone remains of thee;
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
Poets themselves must fall, like those they fung, Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. Ev'n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, Shall fhortly want the generous tear he pays; Then from his closing eyes thy form fhall part, And the last pang fhall tear thee from his heart; Life's idle bus'nefs at one gafp be o'er, The mufe forgot, and thou belov'd no more!
HENCE loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn
'Mongft horrid shapes, and shrieks, and fights un
Find out fome uncouth cell,
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night raven fings;
There, under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian defert ever dwell.
But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In heav'n yclep'd Euphrofyne,
And by men, heart-eafing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two fifter Graces more-
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as fome fager fing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,
And fresh-blown rofes wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
Hafte thee Nymph, and bring with thee
Jeft and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his fides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free ;
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