But foon the momentary pleasure flies,
Swift vanishes the God, or hero dies.
Where were ye, Mufes, by what fountain fide,
What river sporting, when your favorite dy'd?
He knew by verse to chain the headlong floods,
Silence loud winds, or charm attentive woods.
Nor deign'd but to high* themes to tune the firing,
To fuch as heaven might hear, and angels fing:
Unlike those bards, who, uninform'd to play,
Grate on their jarring pipes a flashy lay:
Each line difplay'd united strength and ease,
Form'd like his manners to inftruct and please.
So herbs of balmy excellence produce
A blooming flower and falutary juice:
And while each plant a finiling grace reveals,
Usefully gay at once it charms, and heals.
Transcend ev'n after death, ye great, in show,
Lend pomp to ashes, and be vain in woe;
Hire fubftitutes to mourn with formal cries,
And bribe unwilling drops from venal eyes,
While here fincerity of grief appears,
Silence that speaks, and eloquence in tears!
While tir'd of life, we but confent to live
To fhow the world.how really we grieve!
As fome fond fire, whofe only fon lies dead,
All loft to comfort makes the duft his bed:
Hangs o'er his urn, with frantic grief deplores,
And bathes his clay-cold cheek with copious showers,
* Mr. Fenton intended to write upon moral fubjects.
Such heart-felt pangs on thy fad bier attend;
Companion! Brother! all in one---my friend!
Unless the foul a wound eternal bears,
Sighs are but air, but common water, tears;
The proud, relentless, weep in ftate, and show
Not forrow, but magnificence of woe.
Thus in the fountain, from the fculptor's hands, With imitated life, an image ftands;
From rocky entrails, through his ftony eyes,
The mimic tears in ftreams inceffant rife;
Unconscious! while aloft the waters flow,
The gazers wonder, and a public show.
Ye hallow'd domes, his frequent visits tell,
Thou court, where God himself delights to dwell ;
Thou myftic table, and thou holy feast,
How often have ye feen the facred guest!
How oft his foul with heavenly manna fed!
His faith enliven'd, while his fin lay dead!
While listening angels heard fuch raptures rise,
As, when they hymn th' Almighty, charm the skies?
But where, now where, without the body's aid,
New to the heavens, fubfifts thy gentle shade ?
Glides it beyond our grofs imperfect sky,
Pleas'd high o'er ftars, from world to world, to fly!
And fearless marks the comet's dreadful blaze,
While monarchs quake, and trembling nations gaze?
Or holds deeps converse with the mighty dead,
Champions of virtue, who for virtue bled?
Or joins in confort with angelic choirs,
Where hymning feraphs found their golden lyres,
Where raptur'd faints unfading crowns inwreath,
Triumphant o'er the world, o'er fin, and death?
O! may the thought his friend's devotion raife!
O! may he imitate, as well as praife!
Awake, my heavy foul! and upward fly,
Speak to the faint, and meet him in the iky,
And ask the certain way to rife as high.
I Prefix your name to the following poem, as a monu
ment of the long and fincere friendship I have borne you I am fenfible you are too good a judge of poetry to approve it; however, it will be a teftimony of my respect You conferred obligations upon me very early in life, almost as foon as I was capable of receiving them May thefe verfes on Death long furvive my own! and remain a memorial of our friendship, and my gratitude when I am no more.
WILLIAM BROOME.
Τὶς ὅἶι δεν εἰ τὸ ζῆν μέν ἐςι κατθανεῖν,
Τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῆν;
! for Elijah's car, to wing my way
O'er the dark gulph of death to endless day!
A thousand ways, alas! frail mortals lead
To her dire den, and dreadful all to tread!
See in the horrors of yon house of woes,
Troops of all maladies the fiend enclofe !
High on a trophy rais'd of human bones,
Swords, fpears, and arrows, and fepulchral stones,
In horrid state fhe reigns! attendant ills
Befiege her throne, and when the frowns, fhe kills: Through the thick gloom the torch red-gleaming burns O'er fhrouds, and fable palls, and mouldering nrns : While flowing stoles, black plumes, and scutcheons spread An idle pomp around the filent dead:
Unaw'd by power, in common heap she flings
The fcrips of beggars, and the crowns of kings:
Here gales of fighs, instead of breezes, blow,
And ftreams of tears for ever-murmuring flow:
The mournful yew with folemn horror waves
His baleful branches, faddening even the graves:
Around all birds obfcene loud-fcreaming fly,
Clang their black wings, and fhriek along the sky:
The ground perverfe, though bare and barren, breeds
All poifons, foes to life, and noxious weeds :
But, blafted frequent by th' unwhoisome sky,
Dead fall the birds, the very poisons die.
Full in the entrance of the dreadful doors,
Old age, half vanish'd to a ghost, deplores :
Prop'd on his crutch, he drags with many a groan
The load of life, yet dreads to lay it down.
There, downward driving an unnumber'd band,
Intemperance and Disease, walk hand in hand:
Thefe, Terment, whirling with remorseless sway
A fcourge of iron, lashes on the way.
There frantic Anger, prone to wild extremes, Grafps an enfanguin'd fword, and heaven blafphemes. There heart-fick Agony distorted stands,
Writhes his convulfive limbs, and wrings his hands.
There Sorrow droops his ever-pensive head,
And Care ftill toffes ou his iron bed:
Or, mufing, faftens on the ground his eye,
With folded arms; with every breath, a sigh.
Hydrops unwieldy wallows in a flood,
And Murther rages, red with human blood,
With Fever, Famine, and afflictive Pain,
Plague, Peftilence, and War, a dismal train !
Thefe, and a thousand more, the fiend furround,
Shrieks pierce the air, and groans to groans refound.
O! Heavens! is this the paffage to the skies
That man must tread, when man your favourite dies?
Oh! for Elijah's car, to wing my way
O'er the dark gulph of death to endless day!
Confounded at the fight, my fpirits fled,
My eyes rain'd tears, my very heart was dead!
I wail'd the lot of man, that all would fhun,
And all muft bear that breathe beneath the fun.
When lo! an heavenly form, divinely fair,
Shoots from the starry vault through fields of air;
And, swifter than on wings of lightning driven,
At once feems here and there, in earth and heaven!
A dazzling brightnefs in refulgent ftreams
Flows from his locks inwreath'd with funny beams;
His rofeate cheeks the bloom of heaven display,
And from his eyes dart glories, more than day:
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