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For---Love almighty! Love almighty! (fing, "Exult, creation !) Love almighty, reigns! "That death of death! that cordial of despair! 2345 "And loud Eternity's triumphant fong!

"Of whom, no more:--For, O Thou Patron-God! "Thou God and Mortal! Thence more God to man! "Man's theme eternal! man's eternal theme!

"Thou canst not 'scape uninjur'd from our praise. 2350 "Uninjur'd from our praise can He escape,

"Who, difembofom'd from the Father, bows
"The heaven of heavens, to kiss the diftant earth!
"Breathes out in agonies a finless foul!

06 Against the Cross, Death's iron fceptre breaks! 2355
"From famish'd ruin plucks her human prey!
"Throws wide the gates celeftial to his foes!
"Their gratitude, for fuch a boundless debt,
"Deputes their fuffering brothers to receive!
“And, if deep human guilt in payment fails; 2360
"As deeper guilt prohibits our despair!
"Injoins it, as our duty, to rejoice!
"And (to clofe all) omnipotently kind,

* Takes his delights among the fons of men."

What words are thefe---And did they come from

heaven?

And were they spoke to man? to guilty man?
What are all mysteries to love like this?
The fongs of angels, all the melodies
Of choral gods, are wafted in the found;
Heal and exhilarate the broken heart;

* Prov. chap. viii.

2365

2370 Though

"Though plung'd, before, in horrors dark as night: Rich prelibation of confummate joy!

Nor wait we diffolution to be bleft.

This final effort of the moral Mufe,

*

How justly titled? nor for me alone :

2375

For all that read; what spirit of fupport,
What heights of Confolation, crown my fong!
Then, farewel Night! of darkness, now, no more:
Joy breaks; fhines; triumphs; 'tis eternal day.
Shall that which rifes out of nought complain

2380

Of a few evils, paid with endless joys?

My foul! henceforth, in sweetest union join

The two fupports of human happiness,
Which some, erroneous, think can never meet;

2390

True taste of life, and conftant thought of death! 2385
The thought of death, fole victor of its dread!
Hope, be thy joy; and probity thy skill;
Thy patron He, whose diadem has dropp'd
Yon gems of heaven; Eternity, thy prize:
And leave the racers of the world their own,
Their feather, and their froth, for endless toils:
They part with all for that which is not bread;
They mortify, they ftarve, on wealth, fame, power;
And laugh to fcorn the fools that aim at more.
How muft a fpirit, late efcap'd from earth,
Suppofe Philander's, Lucia's, or Narciffa's,
The truth of things new-blazing in its eye,
Look back, aftonish'd, on the ways of men,

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2395

Whofe

Whofe lives whole drift is to forget their graves!
And when our prefent privilege is past,

To fcourge us with due fenfe of its abuse,
The fame aftonishment will feize us all.

What then must pain us, would preserve us now.
Lorenzo! 'tis not yet too late; Lorenzo!

Seize wisdom, ere 'tis torment to be wife,
That is, feize wifdom, ere fhe feizes thee.
For what, my small philofopher! is hell?
'Tis nothing but full knowledge of the truth,
When truth, refifted long, is fworn our foe;
And calls Eternity to do her right.

Thus, darkness aiding intellectual light,
And facred filence whispering truths divine,
And truths divine converting pain to peace,
My fong the midnight raven has outwing'd,
And fhot, ambitious of unbounded fcenes,
Beyond the flaming limits of the world,

Her gloomy flight. But what avails the flight of fancy, when our hearts remain below?

Virtue abounds in flatterers and foes;

2400

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2410

2415

"Tis pride, to praise her; penance to perform.

2420

To more than words, to more than worth of tongue,

Lorenzo rife, at this aufpicious hour;

An hour, when heaven 's most intimate with man;

When, like a falling star, the ray divine
Glides fwift into the bofom of the juft;
And juft are all, determin'd to reclaim ;
Which fets that title high within thy reach.

2425

Awake,

awake!

Awake, then thy Philander calls
Thou, who fhalt wake, when the creation fleeps ;
When, like a taper, all these suns expire;
When Time, like him of Gaza in his wrath,
Plucking the pillars that fupport the world,
In Nature's ample ruins lies intomb'd;
And Midnight, Univerfal Midnight! reigns.

2430

END OF THE NIGHT-THOUGHTS.

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