There with loud plaints fhe wounds the pitying skies,
And, oh! return, my lovely youth, she cries;
Return, Florelio, with thy wonted charms
Fill the foft circle of my longing arms. —
Ceafe, fair affliction, ceafe! the lovely boy
In Death's cold arms must pale and breathless lie.
The Fates can never change their first decree,
Or fure they would have chang'd this one for thec.
Pan for his Syrinx makes eternal moan,
Ceres her daughter loft, and thou thy fon.
Thy fon for ever now has left the plain,
And is the grief, who was the grace, of every British swain.
Adieu, ye moffy caves, and fhady groves,
Once happy fcenes of our fuccefsful loves:
Ye hungry herds, and bleating flocks, adieu!
Flints be your beds, and browze the bitter yew.
Two lambs alone fhall be my charge to feed,
For yearly on his grave two lambs shall bleed.
This pledge of lasting love, dear shade, receive.
'Tis all, alas, a fhepherd's love can give !
But grief from its own power will set me free,
Will fend me foon a willing ghoft to thee:
Cropt in the flowery fpring of youth, I'll go
With hafty joy to wait thy fhade below:
In ever-fragrant meads, and jafmine-bowers
We'll dwell, and all Elyfium fhall be ours.
Where citron groves æthereal odours breathe,
And streams of flowing crystal purl beneath;
Where all are ever young, and heavenly fair,
As here above thy fifter Graces are.
HAT art thou, Life, whose stay we court?
What is thy rival death we fear?
Since we 're but fickle Fortune's sport,
Why fhould the wish t' inhabit here,
And think the race we find fo rough too fhort?
While in the womb we forming lie,
While yet the lamp of life difplays
A doubtful dawn with feeble rays,
New iffuing from Non-entity;
The fhell of flesh pollutes with fin
Its gem, the foul, just enter'd in ;
And, by tranfmitted vice defil'd,
The fiend commences with the child.
In this dark region future fates are bred,
And mines of fecret ruin laid:
Hot fevers here long kindling lie,
Prepar'd with flaming whips to rage,
And lafh on lingering destiny,
Whene'er excefs has fir'd our riper age.
Here brood in infancy the gout and stone,
Fruits of our fathers' follies, not our own.
Ev'n with our nourishment we death receive,
For here our guiltlefs mothers give
Poifon for food when firft we live.
Hence noifome humours* fweat through every pore,
And blot us with an undistinguish'd fore:
Nor, mov'd with beauty, will the dire difeafe
Forbear on faultlefs forms to feize;
But vindicates the good, the gay,
The wife, the young, its common prey.
Had all, conjoin'd in one, had power to fave,
The Mufes had not wept o'er Blandford's grave.
The fpark of pure ætherial light
That actuates this fleeting frame,
Darts through the cloud of flesh a fickly flame,
And feems a glow-worm in a winter-night.
But man would yet look wondrous wife,
And equal chains of thought devise;
Intends his mind on mighty fchemes,
Refutes, defines, confirms, declaims ;
And diagrams he draws, t' explain
The learn'd chimeras of his brain ;
And, with imaginary wisdom proud,
Thinks on the goddess while he clips the cloud.
Through Error's mazy grove, with fruitless toil,
Perplex'd with puzzling doubts we roam;
Falfe images our fight beguile,
But still we stumble through the gloom,
And science feek, which still deludes the mind.
Yet, more enamour'd with the race,
With difproportion'd speed we urge the chace :
In vain! the various prey no bounds restrain ;
Fleeting it only leaves, t' increase our pain,
A cold unfatisfying fcent behind.
Yet, gracious God! prefumptuous man
With random guesses makes pretence
To found thy fearchlefs providence
From which he first began:
Like hooded hawks we blindly tower,
And circumfcribe, with fancy'd laws, thy power.
Thy will the rolling orbs obey,
The moon, prefiding o'er the fea,
Governs the waves with equal fway:
But man perverfe, and lawless ftill,
Boldly runs counter to thy will;
Thy patient thunder he defies;
Lays down falfe principles, and moves
By what his vicious choice approves ;
And, when he's vainly wicked, thinks he's wife.
Return, return, too long misled!
With filial fear adore thy God:
Ere the vaft deep of heaven was spread,
Or body first in space abode,
Glories ineffable adorn'd his head.
Unnumber'd feraphs round the burning throne,
Sung to th' incomprehenfible Three-One :
Yet then his clemency did please
With lower forms t'augment his train,
And made thee, wretched creature, Man,
Probationer of happiness.
On the vast ocean of his wonders here,
We momentary bubbles ride,
Till, crush'd by the tempeftuous tide,
Sunk in the parent flood we disappear :
We, who fo gawdy on the waters fhone,
Proud, like the showery bow, with beauties not our own, IX.
But, at the signal given, this earth and fea
Shall fet their fleeping vaffals free ;
And the belov'd of God,
The Faithful, and the Juft,
Like Aaron's chofen rod,
Though dry, fhall bloffom in the duft:
Then, gladly bounding from their dark restraints,
The skeletons fhall brighten into faints,
And, from mortality refin'd, fhall rise
To meet their Saviour coming in the skies :
Inftructed then by intuition, we
Shall the vain efforts of our wisdom fee;
Shall then impartially confefs
Our demonstration was but guess;
That Knowledge, which from human reafon flows,
Unless Religion guide its course,
And Faith her steady mounds oppose,
Is Ignorance at beft, and often worse.
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