T

IR'D Nature's fweet reftorer, balmy Sleep! He, like the world, his ready vifit pays Where Fortune fmiles; the wretched he forSwift on his downy pinion flies from woe, And lights on lids unfully'd with a tear.

[fakes :

From fhort (as usual) and disturb'd repose,
I wake how happy they who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infeft the grave.
I wake, emerging from a fea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd defponding thought
From wave to wave of fancy'd mifery

At random drove, her helm of reafon loft:
Tho' now reftor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) feverer for fevere:
The day too short, for my diftrefs! and night,
Even in the zenith of her dark domain,

Is funfhine to the colour of my fate.

Night, fable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In raylefs majesty, now ftretches forth
Her leaden fceptre o'er a flumb'ring world:
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor liftning ear an object finds :
Creation fleeps. "Tis as the general pulfe
Of life ftood ftill, and Nature made a paufe;
An awful paufe! prophetic of her end.
And let her prophecy be foon fulfill'd;
Fate! drop the curtain;

can lofe no more.

Silence, and Darknefs! folemn fifters! twins From ancient Night, who nurfe the tender thought To reafon, and on reafon build refolve,

(That column of true majefty in man), Aflift me: I will thank you in the grave;

The grave, your kingdom: there this frame shall fall:
A victim facred to your dreary fhrine.

But what are ye?—THOU, who didst put to flight
Primæval filence, when the morning-stars
Exulting, fhouted o'er the rifing ball;

O THOU! whofe word from folid darkness ftruck.
That spark, the fun, strike wisdom from my foul;
My foul which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,
As mifers to their gold, while others rest.

Thro' this opaque of nature, and of foul,
This double night, tranfmit one pitying ray,
To lighten, and to chear. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe),
Lead it thro' various fcenes of life and death;
And from each scene the noblest truths inspire.
Nor lefs infpire my conduct, than my fong;
Teach my beft reason, reason; my best will,
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm refolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear..
Nor let the vial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

The bell ftrikes One. We take no note of time,
But from its lofs. To give it then a tongue,
Is wife in man. As if an angel spoke,

I feel the folemn found. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours.

Where are they? with the years beyond the flood:
It is the fignal that demands dispatch;

How much is to be done? my hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-on what? a fathomless abyfs;
A dread eternity! how furely mine?
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor penfioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how auguft, How complicate, how wonderful is man ?