• There are, I fee, who listen to my lay,
Who wretched figh for virtue, but despair.
All may be done, (methinks I hear them say,)
E'en death defpis'd, by generous actions fair;
All, but for those who to thefe bowers repair.
Their every power diffolv'd in luxury,
To quit of torpid floggishness the lair,
And from the powerful arms of Sloth get free.
"Tis rifing from the dead-Alas!-it cannot
⚫ be!

LX.

Would you then learn to diffipate the band Of these huge threat'ning difficulties dire, That in the weak man's way like lions stand, His foul appall, and damp his rifing fire? Refolve, refolve, and to be men aspire. Exert that noble privilege, alone, "Here to mankind indulg'd; controul defire ; 'Let godlike Reason, from her fovereign throne, Speak the commanding word-I Will!-and it ⚫ is done.

LXI.

Heavens! can you then thus wafte, in fhameful
⚫ wife,

Your few important days of trial here?
Heirs of eternity! yborn to rife

Through endless flates of being, still more near
To blifs approaching, and perfection clear,
Can you renounce a fortune fo fublime?

Such gorious hopes, your backward fteps to
fteer,

And roll, with vileft brates, through mud and 'flime?

No! no!-your heaven-touch'd hearts difdain

the fordid crime !'

LXII.

Enough! enough! they cry'd-Strait, the crowd,

Ye fons of Hate! (they bitterly exclaim'd)
What brought you to this feat of peace and loved
While with kind Nature, here amid the grove,
We pafs'd the harmless sabbath of our time,
What to disturb it could, fell men, emove
Your barbarous hearts? Is happiness a crime?
Then do the fiends of hell rule in yon' heaven
'fublime.'

LXV.

Ye impious Wretches!' (quoth the Knight in
wrath)

Your happinefs behold?—Then straight a wand
He way'd, an anti-magic power that hath,
Truth from illufive falfehood to command.
Sudden the landscape finks on every hand;
The pure quick ftreams are marshy puddles found;
On baleful heaths the groves all blacken'd ftand;
And o'er the weedy, foul, abhorred ground,
Snakes, adders, toads, each loathfome creature,
crawls around.

EXVI.

And here and there, on trees by lightning scath'd,
Unhappy wights who loathed life yhung,
Or in frefh gore and recent murder bath'd,
They weltering lay; or elfe, infuriate flung
Into the gloomy flood, while ravens fung
The funeral dirge, they down the torrent rowl'd;
Thefe by diftemper'd blood to madness stung,
Had doom'd themselves; whence oft', when night
controul'd

The world, returning hither their fad spirits howl'd.
LXVII.

Mean time a moving fcene was open laid; ̧
That lazar-houfe I whilom in my lay
Depainted have, its horrors deep-display'd,
And gave unnumber'd wretches to the day,
Who tofling there in squalid misery lay.
from Soon as of facred light th' unwonted fmile
Pour'd on thefe living catacombs its ray,
Through the drear caverns ftretching many a mile,
The fick up-rais'd their heads, and drop'd their
woes awhile.

The better fort on wings of transport fly;
As when amid the lifelefs fummits proud
Of Alpine cliffs, where to the gelid fky
Snows pil'd on fnows in wintry torpor lie,
The rays divine of vernal Phœbus play;
Th' awaken'd heaps, in ftreamlets from on high,
Rous'd into action, lively leap away,
Glad-warbling through the vales, in their new
being gay.

LXVIII.

O heaven! (they cry'd,) and do we once more fee
Yon' bleffed fun, and this green earth fo fair?
Are we from poifome damps of peft-house free?
And drink our fouls the fweet ethereal air?
O thou! or Knight or God! who holdeft there
That fiend, oh! keep him in eternal chains!
But what for us, the children of Despair,
Brought to the brink of hell, what hope re-
mains?

Repentance does itself but aggravate our pains.'
LXIX.

The gentle Knight, who faw their rueful cafe,
Let fall adown his filver beard fome tears.
Certes (quoth he) it is not e'en in Grace
T' undo the past, and eke your broken years,
Nathlefs, to nobler worlds Repentance rears,
With humble hope, her eye; to her is given
A power the truly contrite heart that cheers;
3 U

She quells the brand by which the rocks are | Amaz'd, their looks with pale difmay were stain'd, riven; And fpreading wide their hands they meek repentance feign'd.

She more than merely foftens, fhe rejoices Hea

Then patient bear the fufferings you have earn'd,
And by thefe fufferings purify the mind:
Let wifdom be by paft mifconduct learn'd,
Or pious die, with penitence refign'd; -
And to a life more happy and refin'd,

• Doubt not, you fhall, new cr.atures, yet arife.

Till then, you may expect in me to find

One who will wipe your forrows from your eyes,
One who will footh your pangs, and wing you to

The first was with base dunghill rags yclad,
Tainting the gale, in which they flutter'd light;
Of morbid hue his features, funk, and fad;
His hollow eyne fhook forth a fickly light;
And o'er his lank jaw bone, in piteous plight,
His black rough beard was matted rank and vile;
Direful to feel an heart-appalling fight!
Mean time foul fcurf and blotches him defile,
And dogs, where'er he went, ftill barked all the
while.

The other was a fell defpightful frend;

Hell hol is none worfe in baleful bow'r below;
By pride, and wit, and rage, and rancour keen'd;
Of man alike, if good or bad, the for:
With nofe up-turn'd, he always made a show
As if he fmek fome naufeous fcent; his eye
And taunts he caften forth most bitterly.
Was cold, and keen, like blast from boreal fnow.
Such were the twain that off drove this ungodly fry.

E'en fo through Brentford town, a town of mud,
An herd of brifly fwine is prick'd along;
The filthy beafts, that never chew the cud,
Still grunt, and squeak, and fing their troublous
fong,

And oft' they plunge themselves the mire among ;
But ay the ruthlefs driver goads them on,
And ay of barking dogs the bitter throng
Ne never find they rot from their unresting fone;
Makes them renew their unmelodious moзn;

A POEM

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

Infcribed to the

RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.

Then breaking hence, he took his ardent flight
Thro' the blue infinite, and every star

Which the clear concave of a winter's night
Pours on the eye or aftronomic tube,
Far-ftretching, fnatches from the dark abyss,
Or fuch as farther in fucceffive fkies
To Fancy fhine alone, at his approach

HALL the great foul of Newton quit this Blaz'd into funs, the living centre each

SHALL

earth

To'mingle with his ftars, and every Muse,
Aftonish'd into filence, fhun the weight
Of honours due to his illuftrious name?
But what can man?-E'en now the fons of Light,
In ftrains high warbled to feraphic lyre,
Hail his arrival on the coaft of blifs.
Yet am not I deterr'd, tho' high the theme,
And lung to harps of angels; for with you,
Ethereal Flames! ambitious, 1 afpire
In Nature's general fymphony to join.

Of an harmonious fyftem; all combin'd,
And rui'd unerring, by that fingle power
Which draws the lone projected to the ground.
O unprofufe Magnificence divine!

50 Wisdom truly perfect! thus to call

60

65

From a few caufes fuch a scheme of things, 70
Effects fo various, beautiful, and great,
An univerfe complete 1 and, O belov'd
Of Heaven! whofe well-purg'd penetrative eye
10 The mystic veil tranfpiercing, inly scann'd
The rising, moving, wide-eftablish'd frame.

And what new wonders can ye fhow your gueft?
Who, while on this dim fpot, where mortals toil,
Clouded in duft, from Motion's fimple laws
Could trace the fecret hand of Providence,
Wide-working thro' this univerfal frame.

15

Have ye not liften'd while he bound the Suns
And Planets to their fpheres! th' unequal task
Of human-kind till then. Oft had they roll'd
O'er erring man the year, and oft' disgrac'd
The pride of fchools, before their courfe was

known

20

25

Full in its caufes and effects to him,
All-piercing fage! who fat not down, and dream'd
Romantic fchemes, defended by the din
Of fpecious words and tyranny of names,
But, bidding his amazing Mind attend,
And with heroic Patience years on years
Deep-fearching, faw at last the System dawn,
And fhine, of all his race, on him alone.
What were his raptures then! how pure! how
ftrong!

And what the triumphs of old Greece and Rome,
By his diminish'd, but the pride of boys
In fome fmall fray victorious! when, instead
Of fhatter'd parcels of this earth ufurp'd

By violence unmanly, and fore deeds
Of cruelty and blood, Nature herfelf
Stood all fubdu'd by him, and open laid
Her every latent glory to his view.

All intellectual eye! our folar round
First gazing thro', he, by the blended power
Of Gravitation and Projection, saw
The whole in filent harmony revolve;
From unaffifted vision hid, the Moons,
To cheer remoter planets numerous form'd,
By him in all their mingled tracts were seen.
He alfo fix'd our wandering Queen of Night,
Whether the wanes into a fcanty orb,

30

35

75

80

He, firit of men, with awful wing purfu'd
The Comet thro' the long elliptic curve,
As round innumerous worlds he wound his way,
Till to the forehead of our evening sky
Return'd, the blazing wonder glares anew,
And o'er the trembling nations fhakes difmay.
The heavens are all his own, from the wild rule
Of whirling vortices and circling fpheres
To their first great fimplicity reitor'd.
The Schools aftonifh'd ftood, but found it vain 85
To combat ftill with demonftration strong,
And, unawaken'd, dream beneath the blaze
Of Truth. At once their pleasing vifions fled,
With the gay fhadows of the morning mix'd,
When Newton rofe, our philofophic fun.

98

95

100.

Th' aerial flow of Sound was known to him,
From whence it firft in wavy circles breaks,
Till the touch'd organ takes the message in.
Nor could the darting beam of Speed immenfe
Elcape his fwift purfuit and meafuring eye.
E'en Light itfelf, which every thing difplays,
Shone undi:cover'd, till his brighter mind
Untwisted all the thining robe of day:
And, from the whitening undiftinguish'd blaze
Collecting every ray into his kind,
To the charm'd eye educ'd the gorgeous train
Of parent-colours. Firft the flaming Red
Sprung vivid forth; the tawny Orange next;
And next delicious Yellow; by whofe fide
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing Green: 105.
40 Then the pure Blue, that fwells autumnal sķies,
Ethercal play'd; and then, of fadder hue,
Emerg'd the deepened Indico, as when
The heavy-fkirted evening droops with froft;
While the last gleamings of refracted light
Dy'd in the fainting Violet away.
Thefe, when the clouds diftil the rofy shower,
Shing out diftin&t adown the war'ry bow,
While o'er our heads the dewy vifion bends
Delightful, melting on the fields beneath.
Myriads of mingling dyes from thefe refult,

Be fhed for him. The virgin in her bloom
Cut off, the joyous youth, and darling child,
These are the tombs that claim the tender tear
And elegiac fong: but Newton calls
For other notes of gratulation high,
That now he wanders thro' thofe endless worlds
He here fo well defcried, and wandering talks,
And hymns their Author with his glad compeers.
O Britain's boaft! whether with angels thou
185

"And I relign my charge."-Ye mouldering Stones!

A friend and father loft, permit the Mufe,
The Mufe affign'd of old a double theme,

To praise dead worth, and humble living pride, s
mea-Whofe generous task begins where int'reft ends;
Permit her on a Talbot's tomb to lay
This cordial verfe fincere, by Truth infpir'd,
Which means not to bestow, but horrow fame.
Yes, the may fing his matchless virtues now——
Unhappy that he may. But where begin?
How from the diamond fingle out each ray,
Where all, tho' trembling with ten thousand hues,
Effufe one dazzling undivided light?