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Serve more than public ends: this Creed of States Seconds, and irrefiftibly fupports,

The Chriftian creed. Are you furpriz'd?-Attend;

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And on the flatefman's build a nobler name.
This punctual justice exercis'd on states,
With which authentic chronicles abounds,
As all men know, and therefore must believe;
This vengeance pour'd on nations ripe in guilt,
Pour'd on them here, where only they exift,
What is it but an argument of sense,
Or rather demonftration, to fupport

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Our feeble faith" 1 hat they who ftates com pofe,

"That men who stand not bounded by the grave, Shall meet like meaiure at their proper hour?" For God is equal, fimilarly deals

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With ftates and perfons, or he were not God;
What means a rectitude immutable?
A pattern here of universal right.

What, then fha!! rescue an abandon'd man?
Nothing. it is reply'd. Reply'd, by whom?
Reply'd by politicians well as priests :
Writ facred fet afide, mankind's own writ,
The whole world's annals; these pronounce his
doom.

Thus (what might feem a daring paradox)
Ev'n politics advance divinity:

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True mafers there are better scholars here,
Who travel history in queft of schemes
To govern nations. or perhaps opprefs,
May there ftart truths that other aims infpire,
And, like Candace's eunuch, as they read,
By Providence turn Chriftians on their road:
Digging for filver, they may ftrike on gold;
May be furpriz'd with better than they sought,
And entertain an angel unawares.

Nor is Divinity ungrateful found.

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As politics advance divinity,
Thus, in return, divinity promotes
True politics, and crowns the ftateman's praife.
All wifdoms are but branches of the chief,
And ftatefmen found but thoots of honeft men.
Are this world's witchcrafts pleaded in excufe
For deviations in our moral line?

This, and the next world, view'd with fuch an

eye

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Their compliment is paid, and 'tis forgot.
What highland pole-axe half fo deep can wound?
But how dare 1, fo mean, prefume fo far?
Affume my feat in the Dictator's chair?
Pronounce, predict (as if indeed inspir^d),
Promulge my cenfures, lay out all my throat,
Til hoarfe in clamour on enormous crimes?
Two mighty columns rife in my support;
In their more awful and authentic voice,
Record profane and facred, drown the Muse,
Though loud and far out-threat her threatening
fong.

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Still farther, Holles! fuffer me to plead
That I fpeak freely as I fpeak to thee.
Guilt only startles at the name of guilt;
And truth, plain truth, is welcome to the wife.
Thus what feem'd my prefumption is thy praife.

Praife, and immortal praife, is Virtue's claim;
And Virtue's fphere is action: yet we grant 520
Some merit to the trumpet's loud alarm,
Whofe clangor kind es cowards into men.
Nor fhall the veríe, perhaps, be quite forgot,
Which talks of immortality, and bids,
In every British breast true glory rife,
As now the warbling lark awakes the morn.
To clofe, my Lord! with that which al fhould
clofe

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And all begin, and strike us every hour, Though no war wak'd us, no black tempe

frown'd.

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han the first feeble dawn of Moral day? Sole day, (let those whom statesmen ferve attend) Though the fun ripens diamonds for their crowns; Sole day worth his regard whom heaven ordains, Undarken'd, to behold noon dark, and date, From the fun's death, and every planet's fall, 480 His all-illuftrious and eternal year;

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As fuits a statesman, such as keeps in view
His own exalted fcience, both confpire
To recommend and fix us in the right.
If we reward the politics of heaven,
The grand administration of the whole,
What's the next world? A fupplement of this:
Without it, Juftice is defective here;
Juft as to ftates, defective as to men :
If fo, what is this world? as fure as Right
Sits in heaven's throne, a prophet of the next.
Prize you the prophet' then believe him too :
His prophecy more precious than his smile.
How comes it then to pass with moft on earth,
That this fhould charm us, that fhould difcom-

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Where ftatesmen and their monarchs, (names of

awe

And diftance here) fhall rank with common men, Yet own their glory never dawn'd before.

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O R, NIGHT-THOUGHTS.

PREFACE.

AS the occafion of this Poem was real, not fie titious; fo the method purfued in it, was ra❤ ther impofed, by what fpontaneously arofe in the author's mind on that occafion, than meditated or defigned. Which will appear very probable from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of Poetry, which is from long narrations to draw fhort morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is fhort, and the morality arifing from it makes the bulk of the Poem. The reafon of it is, That the facts mentioned did naturally pour thefa moral reflections on the thought of the writer.

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I wake: How happy they who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infeft the grave.
I wake, emerging from a fea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd defponding
thought,

From wave to wave of fancied misery,
At random drove, her helm of reafon loft
Though now reftor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) feverer for severe.
The Day too fhort for my distress; and•Night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,

Is funfhine to the colour of my fate.

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Night, fable goddefs! from her ebon throne, In raylefs majefly, now ftretches forth Her leaden fceptre o'er a lumbering world. Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds; Creation fleeps. 'Tis as the general pulfe Of life ftood ftill, and nature made a pause; An awful paufe! prophctic of her end. And let her prophecy be foon fulfill'd, Fate drop the curtain; I can lofe no more. Silence and darkness! folemn fifters! twins From ancient Night, who nurse the tender

thought!

To Reafon, and on Reafon build Refolve, (That column of true majesty in man) Affiit me: I will thank you in the grave;

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The grave, your kingdom: There this frame What though my foul fantastic meafures trod

fhall fall

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My foul, which flies to Thee, her truft, her treafure,

As mifers to their gold, while others reft.

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Through this opaque of Nature, and of Soul,
This doub'e night, tranfmit one pitying ray,
To lighten, and to chear. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe)
Lead it through various fcenes of Life and
Death;

And from each scene, the nobleft truths inspire.
Nor lefs infpire my Conduct, than my fong;
Teach my best reafon. reason, my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm refolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.

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The bell ftrikes One. We take no note of time
But from its lofs To give it then a tongue,
Is wife in man.

As if an angel spoke,
I feel the folemn found. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours:

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.

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It is the fignal that demands dispatch:
How much is to be done? My hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-On what? a fathom efs abyfs;
A dread eternity how furely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor penfioner on the bounties of an hour?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how auguft,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How paffing wonder He, who made him fuch!
Who centred in our make fuch ftrange extremes
From different natures marvelonfly mixt,
Connexion exquifite of diftant worlds
Diftinguish'd link in Being's endless chain !
Midway from Nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, fully'd, and abforpt!
Though fully'd and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim minature of greatnefs abfolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of duft!
Helplefs immortal! inf & infinite!
A worm! a god!-I tremble at myself,
And in myself am loft! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, furpriz'd, aghaft,
And wondering at her own: How reafon reels!
O what a miracle to man is man,
Triumphantly diftrefs'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately tranfported, and alarm'd!
What can preferve my life! or what destroy!
An angel's arm can't preferve me from the
grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.
'Tis paft conjecture; all rife in proof:
While o'er my limbs fleep's foft dominion fpread,

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O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathlefs woods; or, down the craggy fcep Hurl'd headlong, fwam with pain the mantled pool;

Or fcal'd the cliff; or danc'd on hollow winds, With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain? Her ceafelefs flight, though devious, speaks her

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In infidel diftrefs? Are Angels there?
Slumbers rak'd up up in duft, ethereal fire? 10
They live! they greatly live a life on earth
Unkindled, unconceiv'd; and from an eye
Of teuderness let heavenly pity fall
On me, more juftly number'd with the dead.
This is the defart, this the folitude:
How populous, how vital. is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,
The vale funereal, the fad cypress gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty fhades!
All, all on earth, is Shadow, all beyond
Is Subitance; the reverfe is folly's creed
How folid all, where change fhall be no more!
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,
The twilight of our day, the vestibule;
Life's theatre as yet is fhut, and death,
Strong death alone can heave the mafy bar,
This grofs impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryo's of existence free,
From real life, but little more remote
Is ie, not yet a candidate for light,
The future embryo flumbering in his fire.
Embryos we n uft be till we burft the shell,
Yon ambient azure fhell, and fpring to life,
The life of gods, O tranfport! and of man.

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Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts;

Inters celeftial hopes without one figh.
Prifoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by heaven
To fly at infinite; and reach it there,
Where feraphs gather immortality,

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I

On life's fair tree, faft by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrofial clustering glow,
In his full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more!
Where time, and pain, and chance, and death
expire!

And is it in the flight of threescore years,
To pufh eternity from human thought,

fmother fouls immortal in the duft?,

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A foul immortal, fpending all her fires,
Wafting her ftrength in ftrenuous idlegefs, 150
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd,
At ought this fcene can threaten or indulge,

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Where falls this cenfure? It o'erwhelms my-
felf;
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How was my heart incruited by the world!
O how felf-fetter'd was my groveling foul!
How, like a worm, was I wrapt round and round

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In filken thought, which reptile Fancy fpun,
Till darken'd Reafon lay quite clouded o er
With foft conceit of endless comfort here,
Nor yet put forth her wings to reach the skies!
Night-vifions may befriend (a fung above) :
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt
Of things impoffible! Could fleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of table pleafures on the toffing wave!
Eternal funfhine in the ftor s of fe
How richly were my noon-tide trences hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur joys!
Joy behind joy, in endiefs perfpeclive

Tell at death's toll. whofe refless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting I woke, and found myfelf undone.
Where now my phrenzy's pompous furniture?
The cobweb'd cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me!
The fpider's moft attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly blifs; it breaks at every breeze.
O ye bleft scenes of permanent delight!
Full, above measure! lafting, beyond bound!
A perpetuity of blifs is blifs

Could you, fo rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghaftly thought would drink up all
joy,

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your

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And quite unparadife the realms of light.
Safe are you lodg'd above thefe rolling fphercs;
The baleful influence of whofe giddy dance
Sheds fad viciffitude on all beneath.
Here teems with revolutions every hour;
And rarely for the better; or the best,
More mortal than the common births of fate.
Each monicnt has its fickle, emulous

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Of Time's enormous feythe, whofe ample fweep
Strikes empires from the root; each moment plays
His little weapon in the narrower sphere
Of sweet domeftic comfort, and cuts down
The fairest bloom of fublunary blifs.

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Precarious courtefy! not virtue's fure,
Self-given, folar-ray of found delight.

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In every vary'd posture, place, and hour,
How wi ow'd every thought of every joy!
Thought, bufy thought too bufy for my peace!
Through the dark pofern of time long elaps'd,"
Lea foftly, by the ftilinefs of the night,
Led, like a murderer, (and fuch it proves!)
Strays (wretched rover) o'er the pleafing past ;
In queft of wretchedness perverfly strays;
And finds all defart now; and meets the ghofts
Of my departed joys; a numerous train!
I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet comfort's blafted clufters I lament;
I tremble at the bleflings once fo dear;
And every pleasure pains me to the heart.

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Yet why complain? or why complain for one?
Hangs out the fun his luftre but for me,
The fingle man? Are angels all befide?

I mourn for millions: 1is the common lot;

In this fhape, or in that, has fate entail'd

The mother's throes on all of woman born, 240
Not more the children, than fure heirs, of pain.

War, Famine, Peft, Volcano, Storm, and Fire,
Inteftine broils. Oppreffion, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brafs, befiege mankind.
God's image difinherited of day,

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Here, plung'd in mines. forgets a fun was made.
There, beings deathlef as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plough the winter's wave, and reap despair.
Some, for hard matters, broken under arms, 250
In battle lopt away, with half their limbs,
Bog bitter bread through realms their valour fav'd,
If fo the tyrant, or his minion, doom.
Want, and incurable difenfe, (felt pair!)
On hopeless mattudes remorfelefs feize
At once; and take a refuge of the grave.

Blifs! fublunary blifs!-proud words, and How groaning hofpitals eject their dead!

vain!

Implicit treafon to divine decree !

A bold invafion of the rights of heaven!
I clafp'd the phantoms, and I found them air,
O had I weigh'd it ere my fond embrace!
What darts of agony had mifs'd my heart!
Death great proprietor of all 'tis thine
To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
The fun himself by thy permiffion thines
And, one day, thou shalt pluck him from
sphere.

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Amid fuch mighty plunder, why exhauft
Thy partial quiver on a mark fo mean?
Why thy peculiar rancour wreak'd on me?

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Happy! did forrow seize on fuch alone.
Not prudence can defend, or virtuę fave;
Difeafe invades the chafteft temperance;
And punishment the guiltlefs; and alarm,

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Through thickest fhades, purfues the fond of Its favours here are trials, not rewards;

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Such is earth's melancholy map! but, far
More fad this'earth is a true map of man. 290
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights
To woe's wide empire; where deep troubles tofs,
Loud forrow's howl, invenom'd paflions bite,
Ravenous calamities our vitals feize,
And threatening fate wide opens to devour.

What then am I, who forrow for myself!

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In age, in infancy, from other's aid
Is all our hope; to teach us to be kind.
That, nature's firft, laft leffon to mankind;
The felfifh heart deferves the pain it feels.
More generous forrow, while it finks, exalts;
And confcious virtue mitigates the pang.
Nor virtue, more than prndence, bids me give
Swoln thought a fecond channel; who divide,
They weaken too, the torrent of their grief. 305
Take then, O World! thy much indebted tear :
How fad a fight is human happiness,

To thofe whofe thought can pierce beyond an

hour!

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A call to duty, not difcharge from care;
And fhould alarm us, full as much as woes;
Awake us to their carfe and confequence;
And make us tremble, weigh'd with our defert;
Awe nature's tumult, and chastise her joys, 335
Left, while we clafp, we kill them; nay, invert
To worse than fimple mifery, their charms.
Revolted joys, like foes in civil war,

Like bofom frendships to refentment four'd,
With rage nvenom'd rise against our peace.
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware
All joys but joys that never can expire.
Who builds on lefs than on immortal bafe,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death.

Mine dy'd with thee, Philander! thy left figh
Diffolv'd the charm; the difenchanted earth
Loft all her luftre. Where her glittering towers?
Her golden mountains, where? all darken'd
down

To naked wafte; a dreary vale of tears;

The great magician's dead! Thou poor, pale piece

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We penetrate, we prophecy in vain.
Time is dealt out by particles; and each
Ere mingled with the ftreaming fands of life,
By Fate's inviolable oath is fworn
Deep fi ence, "Where eternity begins 270

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By nature's law, what may be, may be now; There's no prerogative in human hours. In human hearts what bolder thought can rife, Than man's prefumption on to-morrow's dawn? Where is to-morrow? In another world. For numbers this is certain; the reverse Is fure to none; and yet on this perhaps, This peradventure, infamous for lies, As on a rock of adamant, we build. Our mountain hopes; fpin out eternal schemes, As we the fatal filters could out-fpin, And, big with life's futurities, expire.

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Not ev'n Philander had bespoke his shroud: Nor had he caufe; a warning was deny'd: How many fall as fudden, not as fife! As fudden, though for years admonish'd home. Of human ills the laft extreme beware,

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