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Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and dæmons, hear!
Ye know the spheres, and various tasks assigned
By laws eternal to the aërial kind.

Some in the fields of purest ether play

And bask and whiten in the blaze of day;

Some guide the course of wandering orbs on high,
Or roll the planets through the boundless sky;
Some, less refined, beneath the moon's pale light
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night,
Or suck the mists in grosser air below,
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main,
Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain.
Others on earth o'er human race preside,
Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide :
Of these the chief the care of nations own,
And guard with arms divine the British throne.
Our humbler province is to tend the fair,
Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care;
To save the powder from too rude a gale,
Nor let the imprisoned essences exhale;

To draw fresh colours from the vernal flowers;
To steal from rainbows ere they drop in showers
A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs,
Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs;
Nay oft, in dreams, invention we bestow,
To change a flounce, or add a furbelow.'

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From Eloisa to Abelard.'

In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heavenly-pensive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing Melancholy reigns,

What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?
Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love !-From Abelard it came,
And Eloisa yet must kiss the name.

Dear, fatal name! rest ever unrevealed,
Nor pass these lips in holy silence sealed:
Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise,
Where, mixed with God's, his loved idea, lies:
O write it not, my hand-the name appears
Already written-wash it out, my tears!
In vain lost Eloisa weeps and prays,

Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys.

Relentless walls! whose darksome round contains Repentant sighs, and voluntary pains:

Ye rugged rocks, which holy knees have worn;
Ye grots and caverns shagged with horrid thorn!
Shrines, where their vigils pale-eyed virgins keep,
And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep!
Though cold like you, unmoved and silent grown,
I have not yet forgot myself to stone.
All is not heaven's while Abelard has part,
Still rebel nature holds out half my heart;
Nor prayers nor fasts its stubborn pulse restrain,
Nor tears for ages taught to flow in vain.

Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,
That well-known name awakens all my woes.
Oh, name for ever sad, for ever dear!

Still breathed in sighs, still ushered with a tear.

I tremble, too, where'er my own I find,
Some dire misfortune follows close behind.
Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow,
Led through a sad variety of woe:

Now warm in love, now withering in my bloom,
Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!

There stern religion quenched the unwilling flame,
There died the best of passions, love and fame.
Yet write, oh, write me all, that I may join
Grief to thy griefs, and echo sighs to thine!
Nor foes nor fortune take this power away:
And is my Abelard less kind than they?
Tears still are mine, and those I need not spare;
Love but demands what else were shed in prayer:
No happier task these faded eyes pursue;
To read and weep is all they now can do.

Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief;
Ah, more than share it, give me all thy grief.
Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banished lover, or some captive maid;
They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires.
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart,
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.

Ah, think at least thy flock deserves thy care, Plants of thy hand, and children of thy prayer; From the false world in early youth they fled, By thee to mountains, wilds, and deserts led, You raised these hallowed walls; the desert smiled, And Paradise was opened in the wild.

No weeping orphan saw his father's stores

Our shrines irradiate, or emblaze the floors:

No silver saints, by dying misers given,

Here bribed the rage of ill-requited heaven:
But such plain roofs as piety could raise,
And only vocal with the Maker's praise.

In these lone walls-their day's eternal bound

These moss-grown domes with spiry turrets crowned,
Where awful arches make a noonday night,
And the dim windows shed a solemn light;
Thy eyes diffused a reconciling ray,
And gleams of glory brightened all the day.
But now no face divine contentment wears,
"Tis all blank sadness or continual tears.
See how the force of others' prayers I try,
O pious fraud of amorous charity!
But why should I on others' prayers depend?
Come thou, my father, brother, husband, friend!
Ah, let thy handmaid, sister, daughter, move,
And all those tender names in one, thy love!
The darksome pines that o'er yon rocks reclined,
Wave high, and murmur to the hollow wind;

The wand'ring streams that shine between the hills,
The grots that echo to the tinkling rills,

The dying gales that pant upon the trees,

The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze;

No more these scenes my meditation aid,

Or lull to rest the visionary maid.

But o'er the twilight groves and dusty caves,
Long sounding aisles, and intermingled graves,

Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws
A deathlike silence, and a dread repose:
Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene,
Shades every flower, and darkens every green,
Deepens the murmur of the falling flocds,
And breathes a browner horror on the woods.
What scenes appear where'er I turn my view!
The dear ideas, where I fly, pursue,
Rise in the grove, before the altar rise,
Stain all my soul, and wanton in my eyes.
I waste the matin-lamp in sighs for thee;
Thy image steals between my God and me;
Thy voice I seem in every hymn to hear,
With every bead I drop too soft a tear.
When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll,
And swelling organs lift the rising soul,
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight,
Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight;
In seas of flame my plunging soul is drowned,
While altars blaze, and angels tremble round.

While prostrate here in humble grief I lie,
Kind virtuous drops just gathering in my eye;
While praying, trembling in the dust I roll,
And dawning grace is opening on my soul:
Come, if thou dar'st, all charming as thou art!
Oppose thyself to heaven; dispute my heart:
Come, with one glance of those deluding eyes
Blot out each bright idea of the skies;

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Take back that grace, those sorrows, and those tears;
Take back my fruitless penitence and prayers;
Snatch me, just mounting, from the blest abode;
Assist the fiends, and tear me from my God!

No, fly me, fly me! far as pole from pole;
Rise Alps between us! and whole oceans roll!
Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me,
Nor share one pang of all I felt for thee.
Thy oaths I quit, thy memory resign;

Forget, renounce me, hate whate'er was mine.
Fair eyes, and tempting looks (which yet I view !)
Long loved, adored ideas, all adieu!

O grace serene! O virtue heavenly 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!

Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady.

What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade,'
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
'Tis she !-but why that bleeding bosom gored?
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?"

Oh, ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,

To act a lover's or a Roman's part?

Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye powers! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;

The glorious fault of angels and of gods:
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen prisoners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years,
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like Eastern kings, a lazy state they keep,
And, close confined to their own palace, sleep.
From these perhaps-ere nature bade her die
Fate snatched her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,

And separate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death;
Cold is that breast which warmed the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball,

Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall:
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates:
There passengers shall stand, and, pointing say-
While the long funerals blacken all the way-
Lo! these were they, whose souls the Furies steeled
And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,

The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!

So perish all, whose breast ne'er learned to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.

What can atone-Oh, ever-injured shade !—

Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid?

No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned,

By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourned !
What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances and the public show;
What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polished marble emulate thy face;
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallowed dirge be muttered o'er thy tomb;
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dressed,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the Morn her earliest tears bestow;
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground, now sacred by the relics made.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How loved, how honoured once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee;
"Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be !

Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,

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Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Even he whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays;
Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart;
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,

The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more!

Happiness depends, not on Riches, but on Virtue.-From the Essay on Man,' Epistle IV.

Know, all the good that individuals find,

Or God and nature meant to mere mankind,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words-Health, Peace, and Competence.
But Health consists with temperance alone;
And Peace, O virtue! Peace is all thy own.
The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain;
But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

Who risk the most, that take wrong means or right?
Of vice or virtue, whether blest or cursed,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?
Count all the advantage prosperous vice attains,
"Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains:
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they must want, which is, to pass for good.
O blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy bliss to vice, to virtue woe!
Who sees and follows that great scheme the best,
Best knows the blessing, and will most be blessed.
But fools the good alone unhappy call,

For ills or accidents that chance to all.

See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just!
See godlike Turenne prostrate on the dust!
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife! *
Was this their virtue, or contempt of life?
Say, was it virtue, more though Heaven ne'er gave,
Lamented Digby! + sunk thee to the grave?
Tell me, if virtue made the son expire,

Why, full of days and honour, lives the sire?
Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath,
When nature sickened, and each gale was death? ‡
Or why so long-in life if long can be-
Lent Heaven a parent to the poor and me? .

Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in men has some small difference made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.

'What differ more,' you cry, than crown and cowl!'
I'll tell you, friend-a wise man and a fool.

You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,

Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk;

Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland, fell fighting under the royal standard, in the battle of Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643 (see ante).

Marshal Tureune was killed by a cannon-ball at Salzbach in Baden, July 26, 1675. Sir Philip Sidney was mortally wounded at Zutphen, Sept. 22, 1586 (see ante).

+ The Hon. Robert Digby, third son of Lord Digby, who died in 1724.

M. de Belsauce was made Bishop of Marseilles in 1709. He died in 1755. During the plague in Marseilles, in the year 1720, he distinguished himself by his activity.

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