'Tis thus in friendship; who depend
On many, rarely find a friend.

A Hare, who in a civil way
Complied with ev'ry thing, like GAY,
Was known by all the beftial train
Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain.
Her care was, never to offend;
And ev'ry creature was her friend.

As forth the went, at carly dawn,
To tafte the dew-befprinkled lawn,
Behind the hears the hunter's crics,
And from the deep-mouth'd thunder flies:
She starts, the ftops, fhe pants for breath;
She hears the near advance of death;
She doubles to mislead the hound,
And meafures back her mazy round;
Till, fainting in the public way,
Half-dead with fear the gasping lay.

What tranfport in her bofom grew,
When first the Horfe appear'd in view!
Let me, fays fhe, your back afcend,
And owe my fafety to a friend.
You know my feet betray my flight;
To friendship ev'ry burthen's light.

The Horfe replied, Poor honett Pufs!
It grieves my heart to fee thee thus:
Be comforted, relief is near;
For all your friends are in the rear.

She next the stately Bull implor'd,
And thus replied the mighty lord:
Since ev'ry beaft alive can tell
That I fincerely wish you well,
I may, without offence, pretend
To take the freedom of a friend.
Love calls me hence; a fav'rite cow
Expects me near yon barley-mow;
And when a lady's in the cafe,
You know all other things give place.
To leave you thus might feem unkind;
But fee, the Goat is juft behind.

The Goat remark'd her pulfe was high,
Her languid head, her heavy eye;
My back, fays he, may do you harm;
The Sheep 's at hand, and wool is warm.
The Sheep was feeble, and complain'd
His fides a load of wool fuftain'd:
Said he was flow, confefs'd his fears;
For hounds eat Sheep as well as Hares.

She now the trotting Calf addrefs'd,
To fave from death a friend diftrefs'd.
Shall I, fays he, of tender age,
In this important care engage?
Older and abler pafs'd you by:
How ftrong are thofe ! how weak am I!
Should I prefume to bear you hence,
Thofe friends of mine may take offence.
Excufe me, then. You know my heart,
But dearest friends, alas! must part.
How fhall we all lament! Adicu!
For, fee, the hounds are juft in view.

YOUNG'S NIGHT-THOUGHTS.
§ 171. NIGHT I.
Steep.
TIR'D Nature's fweet reftorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready vifit pays

A victim facred to your dreary fhrine:
But what are ye? Thou, who didft put to flight
Primeval Silence, when the morning stars
Exulting, fhouted o'er the rifing ball;

O Thou! whofe word from folid darknefs ftruck
That fpark, the fun; ftrike wifdom from my foul,
My foul which flies to Thee,her truft,her treasure;
As mifers to their gold, while others reft.

Thro' this opaque of nature, and of foul, This double night, tranfmit one pitying ray, To lighten, and to cheer: O lead my mind, (A mind that fain would wander from its woe) Lead it thro' various fcenes of Life and Death, And from each fcene, the nobleft truths infpire: Nor lefs infpire my conduct, than my fong; Nor let the vial of thy vengeance, pour'd On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

Where are they? with the years beyond the Flood:
It is the fignal that demands dispatch;

How much is to be done! my hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down on what? a fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how furely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pentioner on the bounties of an hour?

§ 175. Man.

HOW poor! how rich! how abject! how

auguft!

How complicate' how wonderful is Man!
How paffing wonder He who made him fuch!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes!
From different natures, marvelously mixt,
Connection exquisite of distant worlds!
Diftinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal fullied, and absorb'd!
Tho' fullied, and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatnefs abfolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of duft!
Helplefs immortal! infect infinite!
A worm! a god! I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost ! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, furpris'd, aghaft,
And wond'ring at her own: how reafon reels!
O what a miracle to man is man!

Triumphantly diftrefs'd, what joy, what dread!
Alternately tranfported and alarm'd!
What can preferve my life? or what destroy?
An angel's arm can 't fnatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

§ 176. Dreams.

"TIS paft conjecture; all things rife in proof: While o'er my limbs Sleep's foft dominion Spread,

What tho' my foul phantaftic measures trod
O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom
Of pathlefs woods; or, down the craggy fteep
Hurl'd headlong, fwam with pain the mantled
pool;

Or fcal'd the cliff; or danc'd' on hollow winds,
With antic fhapes, wild natives of the brain?
Her ceafelefs flight, tho' devious, speaks her nature
Of fubtler effence than the trodden clod;
Active, aerial, tow'ring, unconfin'd,
Unfetter'd with her grofs companion's fall:
Ev'n filent night proclaims my foul immortal:
Ev'n filent night proclaims eternal day :
For human weal, heaven husbands all events,
Pull fleep instructs, nor fport vain dreams in vain.

177. Vanity of Lamentation over the Dead. WHY then their lofs deplore, that are not loft: Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around,

In infidel diftrefs are angels there? Slumbers, rak'd up in duft, ethereal fire? They live! they greatly live a life on earth

Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an eye
Of tenderness, let heavenly pity fall
On me, more juftly number'd with the dead:
This is the defert, this the folitude:
How populous! how vital, is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,
The vale funereal, the fad cyprefs gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty fhades:
All, all on earth is fhadow, all beyond
Is fubftance; the reverfe is folly's creed;
How folid all, where change fhall be no more!

§ 178. Life and Eternity.

THIS

is the bud of being, the dim dawn;
Life's theatre as yet is fhut, and death,
Strong death alone can heave the maffy bar,
This grofs impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryos of exiftence free.
From real life, but little more remote
Is he, not yet a candidate for light,
The future embryo, lumbering in his fire.
Embryos we must be, till we burft the thell,
Yon ambient, azure fhell, and fpring to life,
The life of gods-O tranfport! and of man.

Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial hopes without one figh:
Prifoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his withes: wing'd by heaven.
To fly at infinite; and reach it there,
Where feraphs gather immortality,
On life's fair tree, faft by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrofial cluft ring glow
In his full beam, and ripen for the Jult,
Where momentary ages are no more!
Where time, and pain, and chance, and death-
expire!

And is it in the flight of threefcore years,
To puh eternity from human thought,
And
immortal in the duft?
A foul immortal, fpending all her fires,
Wafting her strength in ftrenuous idlencfs,
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd, or alarm'd,
At aught this fcene can threaten or indulge,
Refembles ocean into tempeft wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

Where falls this cenfure? It o'erwhelms myself. How was my heart encrufted by the world!

how felf-fetter'd was my grovelling foul! How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round In filken thought, which reptile Fancy fpun, Till darken'd Reafon lay quite clouded o'er With foft conceit of endlefs comfort here, Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!

Our waking dreanis are fatal: how I dreamt Of things impoffible! (could fleep do more :) Of joys perpetual in perpetual change! Of table pleafures on the toffing wave! Eternal funfhine in the ftorins of life! How richly were my noon-tide trances hung With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys! Joy behind joy, in endless peripective! Till at Death's toll, whofe reftiefs iron tongue Calls daily for his millions at a meal, Starting, I woke, and found myself undone t

Where

Where now my phrenfy's pompous furniture?
The cobweb'd cottage with its ragged wall
Of mould'ring mud, is royalty to me!
The fpider's thread is cable to man's tie
On carthly blifs; it breaks at every breeze.

$179. Time and Death.

O
YE bleft fcenes of permanent delight!
Full, above meafure! latting, beyond bound
Could you, fo rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghafly thought would drink up all your
joy,

And quite unparadife the realms of light.
Safe are you lodg'd above thefe rolling fpheres,
The baleful influence of whofe giddy dance
Sheds fad viciffitude on all beneath.
Here teems with revolutions every hour;
And rarely for the better; or the best,
More mortal than the common births of fate:
Each moment has its fickle, emulous
Of Time's enormous feythe, whofe ample fweep
Strikes empires from the root; each moment
plies

His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of fweet domeftic comfort, and cuts down
The faireft bloom of fublunary blifs.

Blifs! fublunary blifs! proud words, and vain!
Implicit treafon to divine decree !
A bold invation of the rights of heaven!
I clafp'd the phantons, and I found them air.
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace,
What darts of agony had mifs'd my heart!
Death! great proprietor of all! 'Tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the ftars:
The fun himself by thy permiffion fhines;
And, one day, thou fhalt pluck him from his

fphere.

Amid fuch mighty plunder, why exhauft
Thy partial quiver on a mark fo mean?
Why thy peculiar rancour wreck'd on me?
Infatiate archer! could not one fuffice?
Thy fhaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was
flain;
[horn.
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her
O Cynthia why fo pale? doft thou lament
Thy wretched neighbour? grieve, to fee thy

wheel

Of ceafelefs change outwhirl'd in human life?
In ev'ry varied pofture, place, and hour,
How widow'd every thought of every joy !
Thought, bufy thought! too bufy for my peace,
Thro' the dark poftern of time long claps'd
Led foftly, by the ftillness of the night,
Strays, wretched rover! o'er the pleafing paft,
In queft of wretchednefs perverfely ftrays;
And finds all defert now; and meets the ghofts
Of my departed joys, a numerous train !
I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet comfort's blafted clusters make me figh:
I tremble at the bleffings once fo dear;
And ev'ry pleafure pains me to the heart.
Yet why complain? or why complain for one!
I mourn for millions: 'Tis the common lot;

In this fhape, or in that, has fate entail'd
The mother's throes on all of woman born,
Not more the children, than fure heirs of pain.

$180. Oppreffion, Want, and Difeafe. WAR, famine, peft, volcano, ftorm, and fire, Inteftine broils, oppreffion with her heart Wrapt up in triple brafs, beficge mankind : God's image, difinherited of day, Here plung'd in mines, forgets a fun was made; There beings, deathlefs as their haughty lord, Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life; And plough the winter's wave, and reap defpair; Some, for hard matters, broken under arms, In battle lopt away, with half their limbs, Beg bitter bread thro' realms their valour fav'd, If fo the tyrant, or his minion doom: Want and incurable Difcafe (fell pair!) On hopeless multitudes remorfclefs feize At once; and make a refuge of the grave: How groaning hofpitals eject their dead! What numbers groan for fad admission there ! What numbers, once in Fortune's lap high-fed, Solicit the cold hand of charity! To fhock us more, folicit it in vain!

Not Prudence can defend, or Virtue fave; Difcafe invades the chafteft temperance; And punishment the guiltless; and alarm Thro' thickeft fhades purfues the fond of peace: Man's caution often into danger turns, And, his guard falling, crushes him to death. Not Happinefs itfelf makes good her name; Our very wishes give us not our wish; How diftant oft the thing we dote on moft, From that for which we dote, felicity!

The finootheft courfe of nature has its pains,
And trueft friends, thro' error, wound our reft;
Without misfortune, what calamities!
And what hoftilities, without a foe!

Nor are foes wanting to the beft on earth:
But endless is the lift of human ills,

And, fighs might fooner fail, than cause to figh.