Nothing is dead, but that which wish'd to die;
Nothing is dead, but wretchednefs and pain;
Nothing is dead, but what incumber'd, gall'd,
Block'd up the pafs, and barr'd from real life.
Where dwells that with moft ardent of the wife
Too dark the fun to fee it, highest stars
Too low to reach it; death, great death alone,
O'er stars and fun, triumphant, lands us there.
Nor dreadful our tranfition; tho' the mind
An artist at creating felf-alarms,

Rich in expedients for inquietude,

Is prone to paint it dreadful. Who can take
Death's portrait true? The tyrant never fat.
Our sketch all random ftrokes, conjecture all
Close shuts the grave, nor tells one fingle tale.
Death, and his image rifing in the brain,
Bear faint refemblance; never are alike;
Fear shakes the pencil; fancy loves excefs;
Dark ignorance is lavish of her fhades:
And these the formidable picture draw.

But grant the worft; 'tis paft; new prospects rife ; And drop a veil eternal o'er her tomb.

Far other views our contemplation claim,
Views that o'erpay the rigors of our life;
Views that fufpend our agonies in death.
Wrapt in the thought of immortality,

Wrapt in the fingle, the triumphant thought!
Long life might lapfe, age unperceiv'd come on;
And find the foul unfated with her theme.

Its nature, proof, importance, fire my fong.

that my fong could emulate my foul!
Like her, immortal. No!-the foul difdains
A mark fo mean; far nobler hope inflames;
If endless ages can outweigh an hour,
Let not the laurel, but the palm, inspire.
Thy nature, immortality! who knows?
And yet who knows it not? It is but life
In ftronger thread of brighter colour fpun,
And spun for ever; dipt by cruel fate
In Stygian dye, how black, how brittle here!
How short our correspondence with the fun!
And while it lafts, inglorious! Our best deeds,
How wanting in their weight! Our highest joys
Small cordials to fupport us in our pain,
And give us ftrength to fuffer. But how great
To mingle int'refts, converse, amities,
With all the fons of reafon, fcatter'd wide
Thro' habitable space, where-ever born,
Howe'er endow'd! To live free citizens
Of univerfal nature! To lay hold

By more than feeble faith on the Supreme!
To call heav'n's rich unfathomable mines

(Mines, which fupport archangels in their ftate)
Our own! To rife in science,, as in bliss,

Initiate in the fecrets of the skies!

To read creation; read its mighty plan
In the bare bofom of the Deity!
The plan, and execution, to collate!

To fee, before each glance of piercing thought,
All cloud, all fhadow, blown remote; and leave

No

No mystery-but that of Love Divine,
Which lifts us on the feraph's flaming wing,
From earth's aceldama, this field of blood,
Of inward anguifh, and of outward ill,
From darkness, and from duft, to fuch a scene!
Love's element! true joy's illuftrious home!
From earth's fad contraft (now deplor'd) more fair!
What exquifite viciffitude of fate!

Bleft abfolution of our blackest hour!

LORENZO, thefe are thoughts that make man Man, The wife illumine, aggrandize the great.

How Great (while yet we tread the kindred clod,
And ev'ry moment fear to fink beneath

The clod we tread; foon trodden by our fons)
How great, in the wild whirl of time's pursuits,
To stop, and paufe, involv'd in high prefage,
Thro' the long visto of a thousand years,
To ftand contemplating our distant selves,
As in a magnifying mirror feen,

Enlarg'd, Ennobled, Elevate, Divine !

To prophefy our own futurities ;

To gaze in thought on what all thought tranfcends!
To talk, with fellow-candidates, of joys
As far beyond conception as desert,
Ourfelves th' aftonish'd talkers, and the tale!
LORENZO, fwells thy bofom at the thought?
The fwell becomes thee: "Tis an honest pride.
Revere thyself;-and yet thyself despise.
His nature no man can o'er-rate; and none
Can under-Fate his merit. Take good heed,

Nor there be modeft, where thou shouldft be proud;
That almost universal error fhun.

How just our pride, when we behold those heights!
Not thofe ambition paints in air, but those

Reafon points out, and ardent virtue gains;

And angels emulate; our pride how juft!

When mount we? When these shackles caft? When quit
This cell of the creation? This small nest,
Stuck in a corner of the universe,

Wrapt up in fleecy cloud, and fine-spun air?
Fine-fpun to fenfe; but grofs and feculent
To fouls celeftial; fouls ordain'd to breathe
Ambrofial gales, and drink a purer fky;
Greatly triumphant on time's farther fhore,
Where virtue reigns, enrich'd with full arrears 7
While pomp imperial begs an alms of peace.

In empire high, or in proud science deep,
Ye born of earth! on what can you confer,
With half the dignity, with half the gain,
The guft, the glow of rational delight,

As on this theme, which angels praise and share?
Man's fates and favours are a theme in heaven.
What wretched repetition cloys us here!
What periodic potions for the fick!

Distemper'd bodies! and diftemper'd minds!
In an Eternity, what fcenes fhall strike!
Adventures thicken! novelties furprize!
What webs of wonder shall unravel, there!
What full day pour on all the paths of heaven,
And light th' Almighty's footsteps in the deep!

How

How fhall the bleffed day of our discharge
Unwind, at once, the labyrinths of fate,
And ftraiten its inextricable, maze !

If inextinguishable thirst in man

To know; how rich, how full, our banquet there!
There, not the moral world alone unfolds;
The world material, lately feen in fhades,

And, in those fhades, by fragments only feen,
And feen those fragments by the lab'ring eye,
Unbroken, then, illuftrious, and intire,
Its ample fphere, its univerfal frame,

In full dimenfions, fwells to the furvey;
And enters, at one glance, the ravisht fight.
From fome fuperior point (where, who can tell?
Suffice it, 'tis a point where gods refide),
How shall the stranger man's illumin'd eye,
In the vaft ocean of unbounded space,
Behold an infinite of floating worlds
Divide the chryftal waves of Ether pure,
In endless voyage, without port? The least
Of these diffeminated orbs, how great!

Great as they are, what numbers Thefe furpass,
Huge, as Leviathan, to that small race,
Thofe twinkling multitudes of little life,
He swallows unperceiv'd! Stupendous These?
Yet what are these ftupendous to the whole?
As particles, as atoms ill-perceiv'd;
As circulating globules in our veins;
So vaft the plar Fecundity divine!
Exub'rant Source! perhaps, I wrong thee ftill..