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She cleaves her wondrous way,

She tunes immortal anthems to the growing day: Nor Rapin' gives her rules to fly, nor Purcell 2 notes to sing.

She nor inquires, nor knows, nor fears Where lie the pointed rocks, or where the' ingulfing sand;

Climbing the liquid mountains of the skies,
She meets descending angels as she flies,
Nor asks them where their country lies,
Or where the sea-marks stand.
Touch'd with an empyreal ray

She springs, unerring, upward to eternal day,
Spreads her white sails aloft, and steers,
With bold and safe attempt, to the celestial land,

Whilst little skiffs along the mortal shores
With humble toil in order creep,
Coasting in sight of one another's oars,

Nor venture through the boundless deep,
Such low pretending souls are they
Who dwell inclos'd in solid orbs of skull;
Plodding along their sober way,

The snail o'ertakes them in their wildest play,
While the poor labourers sweat to be correctly dull.

Give me the chariot whose diviner wheels

Mark their own route, and unconfin'd
Bound o'er the everlasting hills,

[hind,

And lose the clouds below, and leave the stars beGive me the Muse whose generous force,

1 The French critic.

* The celebrated English composer.

Impatient of the reins,

Pursues an unattempted course, Breaks all the critics' iron chains,

And bears to paradise the raptur'd mind.
There Milton dwells: the man who sung
Themes not presum'd by mortal tongue;
New terrors, or new glories, shine
In every page, and flying scenes divine
Surprise the wondering sense, and draw our souls
Behold his Muse sent out to' explore

[along.

The unapparent deep where waves of Chaos roar,
And realms of night unknown before.
She trac'd a glorious path untrod,

Through fields of heavenly war, and seraphs over-
Where his adventrous genius led:

Sovereign she fram'd a model of her own,

Nor thank'd the living nor the dead.

The noble hater of degenerate rhyme

[thrown,

Shook off the chains, and built his verse sublime;
A monument too high for coupled sounds to climb.
He mourn'd the garden lost below;
(Earth is the scene for tuneful woe)
Now bliss beats high in all his veins,
Now the lost Eden he regains,

Keeps his own air, and triumphs in unrival'd strains.
Immortal bard! Thus thy own Raphael sings,
And knows no rule but native fire:

All Heaven sits silent, while to' his sovereign strings
He talks unutterable things;

With graces infinite his untaught fingers rove
Across the golden lyre:

From every note devotion springs;
Rapture, and harmony, and love,

O'erspread the listening choir.

TO MR. NICHOLAS CLARK

THE COMPLAINT.

'Twas in a vale where osiers grow
By murmuring streams, we told our woe,
And mingled all our cares:
Friendship sat pleas'd in both our eyes,
In both the weeping dews arise,
And drop alternate tears.

The vigorous monarch of the day,
Now mounting half his morning way,
Shone with a fainter bright;
Still sickening, and decaying still,
Dimly he wander'd up the hill,
With his expiring light.

In dark eclipse his chariot roll'd,
The queen of night obscur'd his gold
Behind her sable wheels;

Nature grew sad to lose the day,
The flowery vales in mourning lay,
In mourning stood the hills.

Such are our sorrows, Clark, I cried, Clouds of the brain grow black, and hide Our darken'd souls behind;

In the young morning of our years Distempering fogs have clim'd the spheres, And choke the labouring mind.

Lo! the gay planet rears his head,
And overlooks the lofty shade,
New-brightening all the skies:

But say, dear partner of my moan,
When will our long eclipse be gone,
Or when our suns arise?

In vain are potent herbs applied,
Harmonious sounds in vain have tried
To make the darkness fly :
But drugs would raise the dead as soon,
Or clattering brass relieve the moon,
When fainting in the sky.

Some friendly Spirit from above,
Born of the light, and nurs'd with love,
Assist our feeble fires;
Force these invading glooms away;
Souls should be seen quite through their clay,
Bright as your heavenly choirs.

But if the fogs must damp the flame,
Gently, kind death, dissolve our frame,
Release the prisoner-mind:

Our souls shall mount, at thy discharge,
To their bright source, and shine at large,
Nor clouded, nor confin'd.

THE

AFFLICTIONS OF A FRIEND.

1702.

Now let my cares all buried lie,

My griefs for ever dumb :

Your sorrows swell my heart so high,
They leave my own no room.

Sickness and pains are quite forgot,
The spleen itself is gone;
Plung'd in your woes I feel them not,
Or feel them all in one.

Infinite grief puts sense to flight,
And all the soul invades :
So the broad gloom of spreading night
Devours the evening shades.

Thus am I born to be unbless'd!
This sympathy of woe

Drives my own tyrants from my breast,
To' admit a foreign foe.

Sorrows in long succession reign;

Their iron rod I feel:

Friendship has only chang'd the chain,
But I'm the prisoner still.

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