XXI.

A melancholy truth! for know,
Could our proud hearts resign,
The distance greatly would decrease
'Twixt human and divine.

How proud the poet's billows swell!
The God! the God! his boast;

A boast how vain! what wrecks abound!
Dead bards stench ev'ry coast.

XXV.

What then am I? shall I presume,

On such a moulten wing,

Above the gen'ral wreck to rise,

And in my winter sing?

XXVI.

When nightingales, when sweetest bards,
Confine their charming song

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To summer's animating heats,
Content to warble young.

XXVII.

Yet write I must; a lady sues;
How shameful her request?
My brain in labour for dull rhyme!
Her's teeming with the best!

XXVIII.

But you a stranger will excuse,
Nor scorn his feeble strain;

To you a stranger, but, thro' fate,

No stranger to your pain.

XXIX.

The ghost of Grief deceas'd ascends,
His old wound bleeds anew;
His sorrows are recall'd to life

By those he sees in you:

XXX.

Too well he knows the twisted strings

Of ardent hearts combin'd,

When rent asunder, how they bleed,

How hard to be resign'd!

XXXI.

Those tears you pour his eyes have shed;

The pang you feel he felt;

Thus Nature, loud as Virtue, bids

His heart at your's to melt.

Young.]

Mrs. M----

Kij

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XXXII.

But what can heart or head suggest?
What sad Experience say?

Thro' truths austere to peace we work

Our rugged, gloomy way.

XXXIII.

What are we? whence? for what? and whither ?
Who know not needs must mourn;

But Thought, bright daughter of the Skies!

Can tears to triumph turn.

XXXIV.

Thought is our armour, 'tis the mind's
Impenetrable shield,

When, sent by Fate, we meet our foes
In sore Affliction's field:

XXXV.

It plucks the frightful mask from ills,
Forbids pale Fear to hide,

Beneath that dark disguise, a friend,
Which turns affection's tide.

XXXVI.

Affection frail! train'd up by Sense,
From Reason's channel strays,
And whilst it blindly points at peace,
Our peace to pain betrays.

XXXVII,

Thought winds its fond erroneous stream
From daily-dying flow'rs,

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And says, time pays an easy price
For our eternal good.

XLIX.

In earth's dark cot, and in an hour,

And in delusion great,

What an economist is man!

To spend his whole estate,

L.

And beggar an eternity?

For which, as he was born,

More worlds than one against it weigh'd,

As feathers he should scorn.

LI.

Say not your loss in triumph leads,

Religion's feeble strife;

Joys future amply reimburse

Joys bankrupts of this life.

LIT.

But not deferr'd your joy so long,

It bears an early date;

Affliction's ready pay in hand

Befriends our present state.

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Like liquid pearl? like pearls of price,
They purchase lasting peace.

LIV.

Grief softens hearts, and curbs the will,

Impetuous passion tames,

And keeps insatiate keen desire

From launching in extremes.

LV.

Thro' time's dark womb, our judgment right,

If our dim eye was thrown,

Clear should we see the will divine

Has but forstall'd our own.

LVI.

At variance with our future wish,
Self-sever'd, we complain:

If so, the wounded, not the wound,
Must answer for the pain.

LVII.

The day shall come, and swift of wing,
Tho' you may think it slow,

When in the list of Fortune's smiles

'You'll enter frowns of woe.

LVIII.

For mark the path of Providence;
This course it has pursu'd,

"Pain is the parent, woe the womb,

"Of sound important good."

LIX.

Our hearts are fasten'd to this world
By strong and endless ties,

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