Virtue alone has majesty in death;
And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns.
Philander! he severely frown'd on thee.
"No warning giv'n! Unceremonious fate!
A sudden rush from life's meridian joy!
A wrench from all we love! from all we are!
A restless bed of pain! a plunge opaque
Beyond conjecture! feeble Nature's dread!
Strong Reason's shudder at the dark unknown!
A sun extinguish'd! a just opening grave!
And oh the last, what? (can words express?
Thought reach it ?) the last-silence of a friend!"
Where are those horrors, that amazement, where,
This hideous group of ills, which singly shock,
Demand from man?-I thought him man till now.
Through nature's wreck, through vanquish'd agonies,
(Like the stars struggling through this midnight gloom)
What gleams of joy? what more than human peace?
Where, the frail mortal? the poor abject worm?
No, not in death, the mortal to be found.
His conduct is a legacy for all.
Richer than Mammon's for his single heir.
His comforters he comforts; great in ruin,
With unreluctant grandeur, gives, not yields
His soul sublime; and closes with his fate.
How our hearts burnt within us at the scene!
Whence this brave bound o'er limits fix'd to man
His God sustains him in his final hour!
His final hour brings glory to his God!
Man's glory Heaven vouchsafes to call her own.
We gaze, we weep; mix'd tears of grief and joy !
Amazement strikes! devotion bursts to flame!
Christians adore! and infidels believe!
As some tall tow'r, or lofty mountain's brow,
Detains the sun, illustrious from its height;
While rising vapours, and descending shades,
With damps, and darkness, drown the spacious
Undamp'd by doubt, undarken'd by despair,
Philander, thus, augustly rears his head,
At that black hour, which gen'ral horror sheds
On the low level of th' inglorious throng
Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and humble joy,
Divinely beam on his exalted soul;
Destruction gild, and crown him for the skies,
With incommunicable lustre, bright.
TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF PORTLAND.
“Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.”—VIRGIL. FROM dreams, where thought in fancy's maze runs mad, To reason, that heaven-lighted lamp in man, Once more I wake; and at the destin'd hour, Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn,
I keep my assignation with my woe.
O! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought,
Lost to the noble sallies of the soul !
Who think it solitude, to be alone.
Communion sweet! communion large and high!
Our reason, guardian angel, and our God!
Then nearest these, when others most remote;
And all, ere long, shall be remote, but these.
How dreadful, then, to meet them all alone,
A stranger! unacknowledg'd! unapprov'd!
Now woo them; wed them; bind them to thy breast;
To win thy wish, creation has no more.
Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend
But friends, how mortal! dang'rous the desire.
Take Phoebus to yourselves, ye basking bards!
Inebriate at fair fortune's fountain-head;
And reeling through the wilderness of joy;
Where sense runs savage, broke from reason's chain.
And sings false peace, till smother'd by the pall.
My fortune is unlike; unlike my song;
Unlike the deity my song invokes.
I to Day's soft-eyed sister pay my court,
(Endymion's rival!) and her aid implore;
Now first implor'd in succour to the Muse.
Thou, who did'st lately borrow' Cynthia's form,
And modestly forego thine own! O thou,
Who didst thyself, at midnight hours, inspire!
1 At the Duke of Norfolk's masquerade.
Say, why not Cynthia patroness of song?
As thou her crescent, she thy character
Assumes; still more a goddess by the change.
Are there demurring wits, who dare dispute
This revolution in the world inspir'd?
Ye train Pierian! to the lunar sphere,
In silent hour, address your ardent call
For aid immortal; less her brother's right.
She, with the spheres harmonious, nightly leads
The mazy dance, and hears their matchless strain,
A strain for gods, denied to mortal ear.
Transmit it heard, thou silver queen of heaven!
What title, or what name, endears thee most?
Cynthia! Cyllene! Phœbe!-or dost hear
With higher gust, fair Portland of the skies!
Is that the soft enchantment calls thee down,
More pow'rful than of old Circean charm?
Come; but from heavenly banquets with thee bring
The soul of song, and whisper in my ear
The theft divine; or in propitious dreams
(For dreams are thine) transfuse it through the breast Of thy first votary- -but not thy last;
If, like thy namesake, thou art ever kind.
And kind thou wilt be; kind on such a theme; A theme so like thee, a quite lunar theme,
Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair!
A theme that rose all pale, and told my soul,
'Twas Night; on her fond hopes perpetual night;
A night which struck a damp, a deadlier damp,
Than that which smote me from Philander's tomb;
Narcissa follows, ere his tomb is clos'd.
Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes ;
They love a train, they tread each other's heel;
Her death invades his mournful right, and claims
The grief that started from my lids for Him:
Seizes the faithless, alienated tear,
Or shares it, ere it falls. So frequent death,
Sorrow he more than causes, he confounds;
For human sighs his rival strokes contend,
And make distress, distraction. O Philander!
What was thy fate? A double fate to me;
Portent, and pain! a menace, and a blow!
Like the black raven hov'ring o'er my peace,
Not less a bird of omen, than of prey.
It called Narcissa long before her hour;
It called her tender soul, by break of bliss,
From the first blossom, from the buds of joy;
Those few our noxious fate unblasted leaves
In this inclement clime of human life.
Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if aught happy here) as good!
For fortune fond had built her nest on high.
Like birds quite exquisite of note and plume,
Transfix'd by fate (who loves a lofty mark)
How from the summit of the grove she fell,
And left it unharmonious! All its charm
Extinguish'd in the wonders of her song!
Her song still vibrates in my ravish'd ear,
Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain
(0 to forget her!) thrilling through my heart!
Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy! this group
Of bright ideas, flowers of paradise,
As yet unforfeit! in one blaze we bind,
Kneel, and present it to the skies; as all
We guess of heaven: and these were all her own.
And she was mine; and I was-was!-most blest !—
Gay title of the deepest misery!
As bodies grow more pond'rous, robb'd of life;
Good lost weighs more in grief, than gain'd, in joy.
Like blossom'd trees o'erturned by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there;
Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.
And will not the severe excuse a sigh?
Scorn the proud man that is asham'd to weep;
Our tears indulg'd, indeed deserve our shame.
Ye that e'er lost an angel! pity me.
Soon as the lustre languish'd in her eye,
Dawning a dimmer day on human sight;
And on her cheek, the residence of spring,
Pale omen sat; and scatter'd fears around
On all that saw (and who would cease to gaze,
That once had seen?) with haste, parental haste,
I flew, I snatch'd her from the rigid north,
Her native bed, on which bleak boreas blew,
And bore her nearer to the sun; the sun
As if the sun could envy) check'd his beam, Denied his wonted succour; nor with more Regret beheld her drooping, than the bells Of lilies; fairest lilies, not so fair!
Queen lilies and ye painted populace!
Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrosial lives;
In morn and ev'ning dew, your beauties bathe,
And drink the sun; which gives your cheeks to glow,
And out-blush (mine excepted) ev'ry fair ;
You gladlier grew, ambitious of her hand,
Which often cropt your odours, incense meet
To thought so pure! Ye lovely fugitives!
Coeval race with man? for man you smile;
Why not smile at him too? You share indeed
His sudden pass; but not his constant pain.
So man is made, nought ministers delight,
By what his glowing passions can engage;
And glowing passions, bent on aught below,
Must, soon or late, with anguish turn the scale;
And anguish, after rapture, how severe !
Rapture? Bold man! who tempts the wrath divine,
By plucking fruit denied to mortal taste,
While here, presuming on the rights of heaven.
For transport dost thou call on ev'ry hour,
Lorenzo? At thy friend's expense be wise;
Lean not on earth; 'twill pierce thee to the heart;
A broken reed, at best; but, oft, a spear;
On its sharp point peace bleeds, and hope expires. Turn, hopeless thought! turn from her :-thought repell'd
Resenting rallies, and wakes ev'ry woe.
Snatch'd ere thy prime! and in thy bridal hour!
And when kind fortune, with thy lover, smiled!
And when high flavoured thy fresh op'ning joys!
And when blind man pronounced thy bliss complete!
And on a foreign shore; where strangers wept !
Strangers to thee; and, more surprising still,
Strangers to kindness, wept: their eyes let fall
Inhuman tears: strange tears! that trickled down
From marble hearts! obdurate tenderness !
A tenderness that call'd them more severe;
In spite of nature's soft persuasion, steel'd;
While nature melted, superstition raved;
That mourn'd the dead; and this denied a grave.
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