As well mere man an angel might beget.

Love, and love only, is the loar for love.
Lorenzo! pride repress, nor hope to find

A friend, but what has found a friend in thee:
All like the purchase, few the price will pay;
And this makes friends such miracles below.

What if (since daring on so nice a theme)
I show thee friendship delicate as dear,
Of tender violations apt to die?

555

560

Reserve will wound it, and distrust destroy.

Deliberate on all things with thy friend :

But since friends grow not thick on every bough
Nor every friend unrotten at the core,

First on thy friend deliberate with thyself;

565

Pause, ponder, sift; not eager in the choice,
Nor jealous of the chosen: fixing, fix;
Judge before friendship, then confide till death.
Well for thy friend, but nobler far for thee.
How gallant danger for earth's highest prize!
A friend is worth all hazards we can run.
'Poor is the friendless master of a world;
A world in purchase for a friend is gain.'

570

So sung he (angels hear that angel sing. Angels from friendship gather half their joy) So sung Philander, as his friend went round In the rich ichor, in the generous blood

575

Of Bacchus, purple god of joyous wit,

A brow solute, and ever laughing eye.

He drank long health and virtue to his friend;

580

His friend! who warm'd him more, who more inspired. Friendship's the wine of life; but frienaship new (Not such was his) is neither strong nor pure.

O for the bright complexion, cordial warmih,

And elevating spirit of a friend,

595

For twenty summers ripening by my side;

All feculence of falsehood long thrown down,

All social virtues rising in his soul,

As crystal clear, and smiling as they rise!

Itere nectar flows; it sparkles in our sight:
Rich to the taste, and genuine from the heart.
High-flavour'd bliss for gods! on earth how rare!
On earth how lost --Philander is no more.

g?

Think'st thou the theme intoxicates my song Am I too warm?--Too warm I cannot be. I loved him much, but now I love him more. Like birds, whose beauties languish, half conceal'd, Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes

Es panded, shine with azure, green, and gold;

590

595

How blessings brighten as they take their fight! GOO
His Right Philander took, his upward flight,
If ever soul ascended. Had he dropp'd,
(That eagle genius!) O had he let fall
One feather as he flew, I then had wrote

What friends might flatter, prudent foes forbear, CO5
Rivals scarce damn, and Zoilus reprievo.
Yet what I can I must: it were profane

To quench a glory lighted at the skies,

And cast in shadows his illustrious clown.

Strange the theme most affecting, most subline, 610
Momentous most to man, should sleep unsung'
And yet it sleeps, by genius unawaked,
Painim or Christian, to the blush of Wit.
Man's highest triumph, man's profoundest fall,
The deathbed of the just! is yet undrawn

615

By inortal hand; it merits a divine :
Angels should paint it, angels ever there,
There on a post of honour and of joy.

Dare I presume, then? but Philander bids,

And glory tempts, and inclination calls.

620

Yet am I struck, as struck the soul beneath
Aerial groves' impenetrable gloom,

Or in some mighty ruin's solemn shade,

Or gazing, by pale lamps, ou highborn dust

In vaults, thin courts of poor unflatter'd kings,

625

Or at the midnight altar's hallow'd flame.
It is religion to proceed. I pause—

And enter, awed, the ten pie of my theme.

Is it his deathbed? No; it is his shrine.

Behold him there just rising to a god.

The chamber where the good man meets his fato

Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of Heaven.
Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance
That threw in this Bethesda your disease:
If unrestored by this, despair your cure;
For here resistless Demonstration dwells.
A deathbed's a detector of the heart!
Here tired Dissimulation drops her mask,

Through Life's grimace that mistress of the scene!
Here real and apparent are the same.

You see the man, you see his hold on Heaven,

If sound his virtue, as Philander's sound.

630

635

640

Heaven waits not the last moment; owns her friends On this side death, and points them out to men; 646

A lecture silent, but of sovereign power!

To Vice confusion, and to Virtue peace.

Whatever farce the boastful hero plays,
Virtue alone has majesty in death;

And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns.
Philander! he severely frown'd on thee.
'No warning given! unceremonious fate!
A sudden rush from life's meridian joys!

G50

A wrench from all we love! from all we are.

655

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!

659

And, oh the last, 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?
Deinand from man-I thought him man, till now. 664
Through Nature's wreck, through vanquish'd agonics

Like the stars struggling through this midnight glooin)
What gleams of joy! what more than human peace!
Where the frail mortal, the poor abject wormn?
No, not in death the rottal 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 'vith his fate.

670

How our hearts burn'd within us at the scene 675 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! 680
Amazement strikes: devotion bursts to flame:
Christians adore! and infidels believe !

As some tall tower, 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 vale
Undamp'd by doubt, undarken'd by despair,
Philander thus augustly rears his head,

At that black hour which general horror sheds
On the low level of the' inglorious throng:

Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and humble joy
Divinly beam on his exalted soul;
Destruction gild and crown him for the skies,
With incommunicable lustre bright

635

690

NIGHT III.

Narcissa.

TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF PORTLAND.

Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.

VIRG.

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 destined 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! unacknowledged! unapproved!

10

Now woo them, wed them, bind them to thy breast: 15 To win thy wish creation has no more :

Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend.

But friends how mortal! dangerous the desire.

Take Phoebus to yourselves, ye basking bards!

Inebriate at fair Fortune's fountain head,
And reeling through the wilderness of joy,

20