Of their own limbs; how many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of mifery: fore pierc'd by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the fordid hut
Of cheerless poverty; how many fhake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
Unbounded paffion, madness, guilt, remorfe;
Whence, tumbling headlong from the height of life,
They furnish matter for the tragic muse:
Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell,
With friendship, peace, and contemplation join'd,
How many rack'd, with honeft paffions droop
In deep retir'd distress: how many ftand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends
And point the parting anguish.-Thought fond man
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one inceffant ftruggle render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appail'd,
And heedlefs rambling impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of charity would warm,
And her wide with benevolence dilate;
The focial tear would rife, the focial figh;
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining fill, the focial paflions work.
REFLECTIONS ON A FUTURE STATE.
'Tis done!-dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reign's tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! horror wide extends
His defolate domain. Behold, fond man!
See here thy pictur'd life: pafs fome few years,
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent ftrength, Thy fober Autumn fading into age,
And pale concluding Winter comes at last,
And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled
Thofe dreams of greatnefs? thofe unfolid hopes
Of happiness? thofe longings after fame?
Those restless cares? thofe bufy bustling days?
Thofe gay-fpent feftive nights? thofe veering thoughts
Loft between good and ill, that fhar'd thy life?
All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal never-failing friend of man,
His guide to happiness on high.-And fee!
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the fecond birth
Of heaven and earth! awakening nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heighten'd form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refin'd clears up apace.
Ye vainly wife! ye blind prefumptuous! now,
Confounded in the duft, adore that
And wisdom oft arraign'd: fee now the cause,
Why unaffuming worth in fecret liv'd,
And dy'd, neglected: why the good man's fhare
In life was gall and bitterness of foul:
Why the lone widow, and her orphans, pin'd
In ftarving folitude; while luxury,
In palaces, lay straining her low thought,
To form unreal wants: why heaven-born truth,
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of fuperftition's fcourge: why licens'd pain
That cruel fpoiler, that embosom'd foe,
Imbitter'd all our blifs. Ye good distrest!
Ye noble few! who here unbending fland
Beneath life's preffure, yet bear up awhile,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more.
The forms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.
ON PROCRASTINATION.
Be wife to-day; 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vaft concerns of an eternal fcene.
Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears
The palm,
"That all men are about to live,"
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They, one day, fhall not drivel; and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future felves applauds ;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's, to wifdom they confign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone.
"Tis not in folly, not to fcorn a fool;
And scarce in human wifdom to de
All promife is poor dilatory man,
And that thro' every stage. When young, indeed,
In full content, we fometimes nobly rest,
Un-anxious for ourselves; and only with,
As duteous fons, our fathers were more wife.
At thirty, man fufpects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to refolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought,
Refolves, and re-refolves, then dies the fame.
And why? because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread; But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air Soon close; where past the shaft, no trace is found, As from the wing no scar the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel:
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
Ev'n with the tender tear which nature sheds
O'er thofe we love, we drop it in their grave. YOUNG,
THE PAIN ARISING FROM VIRTUOUS EMOTIONS ATTENDED WITH PLEASURE.
Of Heav'ns eternal destiny to man,
For ever juft, benevolent, and wife:
That virtue's awful fteps, howe'er purfu'd
By vexing fortune and intrufive pain,
Should never be divided from her chaste,
Her fair attendant, pleasure. Need I urge
The tardy thought thro' all the various round
Of this existence, that thy foft'ning foul
At length may learn what energy the hand
Of virtue mingles in the bitter tide
Of paffion, fwelling with diftrefs and pain,
To mitigate the sharp with gracious drops
Of cordial pleasure? Afk the faithful youth,
Why the cold urn of her whom long he lov'd
So often fills his arms fo often draws
His lonely footsteps, at the filent hour,
To pay the mournful tribute of his tears?
O! he will tell thee, that the wealth of worlds
Should ne'er feduce his bofom to forego
That facred hour, when stealing from the noise
Of care and envy, fweet remembrance fooths
With virtue's kindeft looks his aching breast,
And turns his tears to rapture.-Ask the crowd
Which flies impatient from the village-walk
To climb the neighbouring cliffs, when far below
The cruel winds have hurl'd upon the coaft
Some hapless bark; while facred pity melts
The gen❜ral eye, or terror's icy hand
Smites their distorted limbs and horrent hair :
While every mother closer to her breast
Catches her child, and pointing where the waves
Foam thro' the shatter'd veffel, shrieks aloud,
As one poor wretch, that spreads his piteous arms
For fuccour, fwallow'd by the roaring surge,
As now another, dash'd against the rock,
Drops lifeless down. O deemeft thou indeed
No kind endearment here by nature giv'n
To mutual terror and compaffion's tears?
No fweetly-melting foftnefs which attracts,
O'er all that edge of pain, the social pow'rs
To this their proper action and their end?-
Afk thy own heart; when at the midnight hour,
Slow through that studious gloom thy paufing eye
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