forget, renounce me, hate whate'er was mine.
Fair eyes, and tempting looks (which yet I view➤
long lov'd, ador'd ideas, all adieu!

O Grace serene! O Virtue heav'nly fair!
divine oblivion of low-thoughted care!

fresh blooming Hope, gay daughter of the sky! and Faith, our early immortality!

enter each mild, each amicable guest; receive, and wrap me in eternal rest! See in her cell sad Eloïsa spread,

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propt on some tomb, a neighbour of the dead.
În each low wind methinks a spirit calls,
and more than Echoes talk along the walls.
Here, as I watch'd the dying lamps around,
from yonder shrine I heard a hollow sound.
"Come, sister, come!" (it said, or seem'd to say)
"thy place is here, sad sister, come away;
once, like thyself, I trembled, wept, and pray'd,
Love's victim then, though now a sainted maid:
but all is calm in this eternal sleep;

here Grief forgets to groan, and Love to weep;
even Superstition loses every fear:

for God, not man, absolves our frailties here."
I come, I come! prepare your roseate bow'rs,
celestial palms, and ever-blooming flow'rs.
Thither, where sinners may have rest, I go,
where flames refin'd in breasts seraphic glow:
thou, Abelard! the last sad office pay,

and smooth my passage to the realms of day:
see my lips tremble, and my eye-balls roll,
suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul!

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Ah, no-in sacred vestments mayst thou stand, 325 the hallow'd taper trembling in thy hand,

present the Cross before my lifted eye,

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teach me at once, and learn of me to die. Ah then, thy once-lov'd Eloïsa see! it will be then no crime to gaze on me; see from my cheek the transient roses fly! see the last sparkle languish in my eye! 'till ev'ry motion, pulse, and breath be o'er; and ev'n my Abelard be lov'd no more. Oh death, all-eloquent! you only prove what dust we dote on, when 't is man we love. Then too, when Fate shall thy fair frame destroy (that cause of all my guilt, and all my joy),

in trance ecstatic may thy pangs be drown'd,

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bright clouds descend, and angels watch thee round; from op'ning skies may streaming glories shine, 341 and saints embrace thee with a love like mine.

May one kind grave unite each hapless name, and graft my love immortal on thy fame! then, ages hence, when all my woes are o'er, when this rebellious heart shall beat no more; if ever chance two wand'ring lovers bring to Paraclete's white walls and silver spring, o'er the pale marble shall they join their heads, and drink the falling tears each other sheds; then sadly say, with mutual pity mov'd, "Oh may we never love as these have lov'd!" From the full choir when loud hosannas rise, and swell the pomp of dreadful sacrifice, amid that scene if some relenting eye glance on the stone where our cold relics lie, devotion's self shall steal a thought from Heav'n, one human tear shall drop, and be forgiv❜n. And sure if Fate some future bard shall join in sad similitude of griefs to mine, condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore,

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and image charms he must behold no more; such if there be, who loves so long, so well, let him our sad, our tender story tell;

the well-sung woes will sooth my pensive ghost; he best can paint 'em who shall feel 'em most.

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EPISTLE

TO SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, LORD COBHAM.
Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men.
Yes, you despise the man to books confin'd,
who from his study rails at human-kind;

tho' what he learns he speaks, and may advance
some gen'ral maxims, or be right by chance.
The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave,

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that from his cage cries Cuckold, Whore, and Knave, tho' many a passenger he rightly call,

you hold him no philosopher at all.

And yet the fate of all extremes is such,

men may be read, as well as books, too much.
To observations which ourselves we make
we grow more partial for th' observer's sake;
to written wisdom, as another's less:

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maxims are drawn from notions these from guess. There's some peculiar in each leaf and grain, some unmark'd fibre, or some varying vein. Shall only man be taken in the gross?

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grant but as many sorts of mind as moss.

That each from other differs first confess,

next, that he varies from himself no less;

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add Nature's, Custom's, Reason's, Passion's strife, and all Opinion's colours cast on life.

Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds? quick whirls and shifting eddies of our minds. On human actions reason tho' you can, it may be reason, but it is not man: his principle of action once explore, that instant 't is his principle no more. Like following life, thro' creatures you lose it in the moment you detect.

you dissect,

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Yet more; the diff'rence is as great between

the optics seeing as the objects seen.
All manners take a tincture from our own,

or come discolour'd thro' our passions shown;
or Fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies,
contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.
Nor will life's stream for observation stay,
it hurries all too fast to mark their way:
in vain sedate reflections we would make,

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when half our knowledge we must snatch, not take. Oft' in the passions' wild rotation tost,

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our spring of action to ourselves is lost: tir'd, not determin'd, to the last we yield,

and what comes then is master of the field.
As the last image of that troubled heap,
when sense subsides, and fancy sports in sleep,
(tho' past the recollection of the thought)
becomes the stuff of which our dream is wrought:
something as dim to our eternal view
is thus, perhaps, the cause of most we do.

True, some are open, and to all men known;
others so very close they 're hid from none;
(so darkness strikes the sense no less than light)
thus gracious Chandos is belov'd at sight;
and ev'ry child hates Shylock tho' his soul
still sits at squat, and peeps not from it's hole.

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At half mankind when gen'rous Manly raves,

all know 't is virtue, for he thinks them knaves: when universal homage Umbra pays,

all see 't is vice, and itch of vulgar praise.
When flatt'ry glares all hate it in a queen,
while one there is who charms us with his spleen.
But these plain characters we rarely find;

tho' strong the bent, yet quick the turns of mind:
or puzzling contraries confound the whole,
or affectations quite reverse the soul.
The dull flat falsehood serve for policy;
and in the cunning truth itself's a lie:
unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise;

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the fool lies hid in inconsistencies.

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See the same man in vigour, in the gout,

alone, in company, in place, or out,

early at bus'ness, and at hazard late,
mad at a fox-chase, wise at a debate,
drunk at a borough, civil at a ball,
friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.
Catius is ever moral, ever grave,
thinks who endures a knave is next a knave.
Save just at dinner---then prefers, no doubt,
a rogue with ven'son to a saint without.

Who would not praise Patricio's high desert,
his hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart,
his comprehensive head! all int'rests weigh'd,
all Europe sav'd, yet Britian not betray'd.
He thanks you not, his pride is in picquette,
New-market fame, and judgment at a bet.

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What made (say Montaigne, on more sage Charron) Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon? A purjur'd prince a leaden saint revere, a godless regent tremble at a star?

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