My soul's ambition, now her greatest dread. "To know myself, true wisdom? No, to shun "That shocking science, parent of despair! "Avert thy mirror: If I see, I die.

"Know my Creator! Climb His blest abode

By painful speculation, pierce the veil, "Dive in His nature, read His attributes, "And gaze in admiration—on a foe,

Obtruding life, with-holding happiness!

"From the full rivers that surround his throne, "Not letting fall one drop of joy on man; "Man grasping for one drop, that he might cease "To curse his birth, nor envy reptiles more! "Ye sable clouds! ye darkest shades of night! "Hide Him, for ever hide Him, from thy thought, "Once all my comfort; source, and soul of joy! "Now leagu'd with furies, and with * Thee, against

"Know his atchievements? Study his renown? "Contemplate this amazing universe,

"Dropt from His hand, with miracles replete !
"For what? 'Mid miracles of nobler name,
"To find one miracle of misery?

"To find the Being, which alone can know
"And praise His works, a blemish on His praise?
"Thro' nature's ample range, in thought, to stroll,
"And start at man, the single mourner There.
Breathing high hope! chain'd down to pangs, and
"death?

* LORENZO.

་་

Knowing is suff'ring: And shall virtue share "The sigh of knowledge?—Virtue shares the sigh. By straining up the steep of excellent,

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By battles fought, and, from temptation, won, "What gains she, but the pang of seeing worth,

Angelic worth, soon shuffled in the dark

"With ev'ry vice, and swept to brutal dust?
"Merit is madness; virtue is a crime;
"A crime to reason, if it costs us pain

Unpaid: What pain, amidst a thousand more,
"To think the most abandon'd, after days
"Of triumph o'er their betters, find in death
"As soft a pillow, nor make fouler clay!

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Duty! Religion !These, our duty done, Imply reward. Religion is mistake.

Duty !—There's none, but to repel the cheat. "Ye cheats! away! ye daughters of my pride! "Who feign yourselves the fav'rites of the skies: "Ye tow'ring hopes! abortive energies! "That toss, and struggle, in my lying breast, "To scale the skies, and build presumptions There, "As I were heir of an Eternity.

Vain, vain ambitions! trouble me no more.

Why travel far in quest of sure defeat?

"As bounded as my being, be my wish.

"All is inverted, wisdom is a fool.

"Sense! take the rein; blind passion! drive us on; "And ignorance! befriend us on our way;

"Ye new, but truest patrons of our peace!

"Yes; give the pulse full empire; live the brute,

Since, as the brute, we die. The sum of man, "Of Godlike man! to revel, and to rot.

"But not on equal terms with other brutes: "Their revels a more poignant relish yield, " And safer too; they never poisons chuse. "Instinct, than reason, makes more wholesome meals, "And sends all-marring murmur far away. "For sensual life they best philosophize; "Theirs, that serene, the sages sought in vain: " 'Tis man alone expostulates with heav'n; "His, all the pow'r, and all the cause, to mourn. "Shall human eyes alone dissolve in tears?

"And bleed, in anguish, none but human hearts? "The wide-stretcht realm of intellectual woe,

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Surpassing sensual far, is All our Own.

"In life so fatally distinguisht, why

"Cast in one lot, confounded, lumpt, in death?
"Ere yet in being, was mankind in guilt?
Why thunder'd this peculiar clause against us,
All-mortal, and All-wretched!-Have the skies
"Reasons of state, their subjects may not scan,
"Nor humbly reason, when they sorely sigh?
"All-mortal, and all-wretched !-'Tis too much
Unparallel'd in nature: 'Tis too much

"On being unrequested at Thy hands,

"OMNIPOTENT! for I see nought but power.

"And why see That? Why thought? To toil, and

eat,

"Then make our bed in darkness, needs no thought. "What superfluities are reas'ning souls!

"Oh give Eternity! or Thought destroy.

"But without thought our curse were half unfelt; "Its blunted edge would spare the throbbing heart; "And, therefore, 'tis bestow'd, I thank thee, Reason! "For aiding life's too small calamities,

"And giving being to the dread of death.

"Such are thy bounties !-Was it then too much
"For me, to trespass on the brutal rights?
"Too much for heav'n to make one emmet more?
"Too much for chaos to permit my mass
"A longer stay with essences unwrought,
"Unfashion'd, untormented into man?
"Wretched preferment to this round of pains!
"Wretched capacity of phrensy, thought!)
"Wretched capacity of dying, life!

Life, thought, worth, wisdom, All (O foul revolt!) "Once friends to peace, gone over to the foe.

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Death, then, has chang'd his nature too: O death!

"Come to my bosom, thou best gift of heav'n! "Best friend of man! since man is man no more.

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Why in this thorny wilderness so long,

"Since there's no promis'd land's ambrosial bower, "To pay me with its honey for my stings? "If needful to the selfish schemes of heaven

"To sting us sore, why mockt our misery?

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Why this so sumptuous insult o'er our heads?

Why this illustrious canopy display'd?

Why so magnificently lodg'd despair? "At stated periods, sure-returning, roll

"These glorious orbs, that mortals may compute "Their length of labours, and of pains; nor lose "Their misery's full measure ?-Smiles with flowers, "And fruits, promiscuous, ever-teeming earth, "That man may languish in luxurious scenes, "And in an Eden mourn his wither'd joys? "Claim earth and skies man's admiration, due "For such delights! Blest animals! too wise "To wonder; and too happy to complain!

"Our doom decreed demands a mournful scene: Why not a dungeon dark, for the condemn'd? Why not the dragon's subterranean den,

"For man to howl in? Why not his abode "Of the same dismal colour with his fate? "A Thebes, a Babylon, at vast expence

“Of time, toil, treasure, art, for owls and adders, "As congruous, as, for man, this lofty dome, "Which prompts proud thought, and kindles high "desire;

"If, from her humble chamber in the dust,

"While proud thought swells, and high desire in"flames,

"The poor worm calls us for her inmates there;

And, round us, death's inexorable hand

"Draws the dark curtain close; undrawn no more. "Undrawn no more!-Behind the cloud of death, "Once, I beheld a sun; a sun which gilt "That sable cloud, and turn'd it all to gold; "How the grave's alter'd! Fathomless, as hell!. "A real hell to Those who dreamt of heav'n.