HAT beckoning ghoft, along the moon-light fhade,
Invites my fteps, and points to yonder glade?
'Tis the! but why that bleeding bofom gor'd,
Why dimly gleams the vifionary fword?
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 reverfion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
Why bade ye elfe, ye Powers! her foul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low defire?
Ambition first sprung from your bleft abodes;
The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods:
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breafts of Kings and Heroes glows.
Moft fouls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull fullen prifoners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years,
Ufelefs, unfeen, as lamps in fepulchres;
Like Eastern Kings a lazy ftate they keep,
And, close confin'd to their own palace, fleep.
From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) Fate fnatch'd her early to the pitying iky.
As into air the purer fpirits flow,
And separate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the foul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race;
But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deferter 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 breaft which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Thus, if eternal Juftice rules the ball,.
Thus fhall your wives, and thus your children fall:
On all the line a fudden vengeance waits,
And frequent herfes fhall befiege your gates;
There paffengers fhall ftand, and pointing fay,
(While the long funerals blacken all the way)
Lo! thefe were they, whose fouls the Furies fteel'd,
And curft with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pafs the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others good, or melt at others woe.
What can atone (oh ever-injur'd shade!) Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid? No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear Pleas'd thy pale ghoft, or grac'd thy mournful bier: 50 By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd, By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By ftrangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd!
What though no friends in fable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances, and the public fhow?
What though no facred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face?
Yet fhall thy grave with rifing flowers be drefs'd,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There fhall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year fhall blow;
While Angels with their filver wings o'ershade
The ground now facred by thy reliques made.
So, peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of duft alone remains of thee,
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
Poets themselves must fall, like those they fung, 75 Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. Ev'n he, whose foul now melts in mournful lays, Shall fhortly want the generous tear he pays; Then from his clofing eyes thy form shall part, And the last pang fhall tear thee from his heart, Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er, The Muse forgot, and thou belov'd no more!
O wake the foul by tender ftrokes of art;
To raife the genius, and to mend the heart;
To make mankind in confcious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the Tragic Mufe first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to ftream through every age;
Tyrants no more their favage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author fhuns by vulgar fprings to move
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;
In pitying Love, we but our weakness show,
And wild Ambition well deferves its woe.
Here tears fhall flow from a more generous caufe,
Such tears as Patriots fhed for dying Laws:
He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rife,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes..
Virtue confefs'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your fight displays,
But what with pleasure Heaven itself furveys,
A brave man struggling in the ftorms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little Senate laws,
What bofom beats not in his Country's caufe?
Who fees him act, but envies every deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Ev'n when proud Cæfar 'midft triumphal cars,
The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state;
As her dead father's reverend image paft,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercaft;
The triumph ceas'd, tears gufh'd from every eye;
The world's great Victor pafs'd unheeded by;
Her laft good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæfar's lefs than Cato's fword.
Britons, attend: be worth like this approv'd,
And fhow, you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honeft fcorn the firft fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom the fubdued;
Your fcene precariously fubfifts too long
On French tranflation, and Italian fong.
Dare to have fenfe yourselves; affert the ftage,
Be juftly warm'd with your own native rage:
Such plays alone should win a British ear,
As Cato's felf had not difdain'd to hear.
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