THE

COMPLAINT.

NIGHT THE SIXTH.

SHE* (for I know not yet her name in heaven)
Not early, like Narciffa, left the scene;
Nor fudden, like Philander. What avail?
This feeming mitigation but inflames;
This fancy'd med'cine heightens the disease.
The longer known, the clofer ftill fhe grew;
And gradual parting, is a gradual death.
'Tis the grim tyrant's engine which extorts
By tardy preffure's ftill-increafing weight,
From hardeft hearts, confeffion of diftrefs.

O the long, dark approach thro' years of pain,
Death's gallery! (might I dare to call it fo)
With difmal doubt, and fable terror, hung;
Sick hope's pale lamp, its only glimm'ring ray
There, fate my melancholy walk ordain'd,
Forbid felf-love itself to flatter, there.
How oft I gaz'd, prophetically fad !
How oft I faw her dead, while yet in fmiles!
In fmiles fhe funk her grief, to leffen mine.
She spoke me comfort, and increas'd my pain.
Like powr'ful armies trenching at a town,
By flow, and filent, but refiftlefs fap,

Referring to Night the Fifth.

In his pale progrefs gently gaining ground,
Death urg'd his deadly fiege; in spite of art,
Of all the balmy bleffings nature lends
To fuccour frail humanity. Ye stars!
(Not now first made familiar to my fight)
And thou, O moon! bear witnefs; many a night
He tore the pillow from beneath my head,
Ty'd down my fore attention to the fhock,
By ceafelefs depredations on a life
Dearer than that he left me. Dreadful poft
Of obfervation! darker ev'ry hour!

Lefs dread the day that drove me to the brink,
And pointed at eternity below;

When my foul fhudder'd at futurity;

When, on a moment's point, th' important dye
Of life and death fpun doubtful, ere it fell,
And turn'd up life; my title to more woe.

But why more woe? more comfort let it be.
Nothing is dead, but that which wifh'd to die;
Nothing is dead, but wretchedness and pain;
Nothing is dead, but what incumber'd, gall'd,
Block'd up the país, and barr'd from real life.
Where dwells that with most ardent of the wife
Too dark the fun to fee it; highest stars

Too low to reach it; death, great death alone,
O'er ftars 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;
Clofe fhuts 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 worst; '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 rigours 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.
O 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 stronger thread of brighter colour fpun,
And fpun for ever; dipt by cruel fate
In Stygian dye, how black, how brittle here!
How fhort our correfpondence 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, converfe, amities,
With all the fons of reafon, fcatter'd wide
Through habitable space, wherever born,
Howe'er endow'd! to live free citizens
Of universal 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 state)
Our own to rife in fcience, as in blifs,
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 myftery-but that of love divine,
Which lifts us on the feraph's flaming wing,
From earth's Aceldama, this field of blood,
Of inward anguish, and of outward ill,

From darkness, and from duft, to fuch

Love's element! true joy's illustrious 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 ftop, and pause, involv'd in high prefage,
Through the long vifta of a thousand years,
To ftand contemplating our distant felves,
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 defert,

Ourselves th' astonish'd talkers, and the tale!
Lorenzo, fwells thy bofom at the thought?
The fwell becomes thee: 'tis an honeft pride.
Revere thyfelf; and yet thyfelf despise.
His nature no man can o'er-rate; and none
Can under-rate his merit. Take good heed,
Nor there be modeft, where thou shouldst be proud;
That almost universal error fhun..

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

Reason points out, and ardent virtue gains;
And angels emulate; our pride how juft!
When mount we? when the fhackles caft? when quit
This cell of the creation? this small neft,
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 sky;
Greatly triumphant on time's farther fhore,

Where virtue reigns, enrich'd with full arrears;
While pomp imperial begs an alms of peace.

In empire high, or in proud fcience 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 fate and favours are a theme in heav'n.
What wretched repetition cloys us here!
What periodic potions for the fick !
Distemper'd bodies! and diftemper'd minds!
In an eternity, what scenes shall strike!
Adventures thicken! novelties furprise!
What webs of wonder fhall unravel, there!
What full day pour on all the paths of heaven,
And light th' Almighty's footsteps in the deep!
How fhall the bleffed day of our discharge
Unwind, at once, the labyrinths of fate,
And straiten 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 seen in fhades,
And, in thofe fhades, by fragments only feen,
And feen thofe fragments by the lab'ring eye,
Unbroken, then, illuftrious, and entire,
Its ample sphere, its univerfal frame,
In full dimenfions, fwells to the furvey;
And enters, at one glance, the ravish'd fight.
From fome fuperiour point (where, who can tell?
Suffice it, 'tis a point where gods refide)
How fhall the ftranger man's illumin'd eye,
In the vast ocean of unbounded space,
Behold an infinite of floating worlds
Divide the chrystal waves of ether pure,

In endless voyage, without

port? The leaft

Of thefe diffeminated orbs, how great!

Great as they are, what numbers these furpafs,
Huge, as leviathan, to that small race,
Thofe twinkling multitudes of little life,

He swallows unperceiv'd! Stupendous these !

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