Rich to the taste, and genuine from the heart. High-flavour'd bliss for gods! on earth how rare! On earth how lost!-Philander is no more.
Think'st thou the theme intoxicates my song?
Am I too warm?-Too warm I cannot be.
I lov'd him much, but now I love him more.
Like birds, whose beauties languish, half-conceal'd,
Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes
Expanded, shine with azure, green, and gold;
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
His flight Philander took, his upward flight,
If ever soul ascended. Had he dropp'd,
(That eagle genius!) O had he let fall
One feather as he flew, I then had wrote
What friends might flatter, prudent foes forbear,
Rivals scarce damn, and Zoilus reprieve.
Yet what I can I must: it were profane
To quench a glory lighted at the skies,
And cast in shadows his illustrious close.
Strange! the theme most affecting, most sublime,
Momentous most to man, should sleep unsung!
And yet it sleeps, by genius unawak'd,
Painim or Christian, to the blush of Wit.
Man's highest triumph, man's profoundest fall,
The death-bed of the just! is yet undrawn
By mortal hand; it merits a divine:
Angels should paint it, angels ever there,
There on a post of honour and of joy.
Dare I presume, then? but Philander bids,
And glory tempts, and inclination calls.
Yet am I struck, as struck the soul beneath
Aerial groves' impenetrable gloom,
Or in some mighty ruin's solemn shade,
Or gazing, by pale lamps, on high-boru dust
In vaults, thin courts of poor unflatter'd kings,
Or at the midnight altar's hallow'd flame.
It is religion to proceed: I pause—
And enter, aw'd, the temple of my theme.
Is it his death-bed? No; it is his shrine:
Behold him there just rising to a god.
The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileg'd beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of Heav'n.
Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance
That threw in this Bethesda your disease:
If unrestor'd by this, despair your cure;
For here resistless Demonstration dwells.
A death-bed's a detector of the heart!
Here tir'd Dissimulation drops her mask
Through Life's grimace, that mistress of the scene!
Here real and apparent are the same.
You see the man, you see his hold on Heav'n,
If sound his virtue, as Philander's sound.
Heav'n waits not the last moment; owns her friends
On this side death, and points them out to men;
A lecture silent, but of sovereign pow'r!
To Vice confusion, and to Virtue peace.
Whatever farce the boastful hero plays,
Virtue alone has majesty in death;
And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns.
Philander! he severely frown'd on thee.
'No warning given! unceremonious fate!
A sudden rush from life's meridian joys!
A wrench from all we love! from all we are!
A restless bed of pain! a plunge opaque
Beyond conjecture! feeble Nature's dread!
Strong Reason's shudder, at the dark unknown!
A sun extinguish'd! a just-opening grave!
And, oh! the last, last; what? (can words express,
Thought reach it?) the last-silence of a friend!'
Where are those horrors, that amazement, where
This hideous group of ills which singly shock,
Demand from man.-I thought him man, till now.
Through Nature's wreck, through vanquish'd
agonies,
(Like the stars struggling through this midnight gloom)
What gleams of joy? what more than human peace?
Where the frail mortal, the poor abject worm?
No, not in death the mortal to be found.
His conduct is a legacy for all,
Richer than Mammon's for his single heir.
His comforters he comforts; great in ruin,
With unreluctant grandeur gives, not yields
His soul sublime, and closes with his fate.
How our hearts burnt within us at the scene! Whence this brave bound o'er limits fix'd to man? His God sustains him in his final hour!
His final hour brings glory to his God!
Man's glory Heaven vouchsafes to call her own. We gaze, we weep; mix'd tears of grief and joy! Amazement strikes: devotion bursts to flame: Christians adore! and infidels believe.
As some tall tower, or lofty mountain's brow,
Detains the sun, illustrious, from its height,
While rising vapours and descending shades,
With damps and darkness, drown the spacious vale;
Undampt by doubt, undarken'd by despair,
Philander thus augustly rears his head,
At that black hour which general horror sheds
On the low level of the' inglorious throng:
Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and humble joy,
Divinely beam on his exalted soul;
Destruction gild, and crown him for the skies,
With incommunicable lustre bright.
TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF PORTLAND.
Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.
FROM dreams, where thought in Fancy's maze run:
To reason, that heaven-lighted lamp in man,
Once more I wake; and at the destin'd hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn,
I keep my assignation with my woe.
O! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought,
Lost to the noble sallies of the soul;
Who think it solitude to be alone.
Communion sweet! communion large and high!
Our reason, guardian-angel, and our God!
Then nearest these, when others most remote;
And all, ere long, shall be remote but these:
How dreadful, then, to meet them all alone,
A stranger! unacknowledg'd! unapprov'd!
Now woo them, wed them, bind them to thy breast:
To win thy wish creation has no more:
Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend.
But friends how mortal! dangerous the desire. Take Phoebus to yourselves, ye basking bards!
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