Render it agile, witty, valiant, fage,

As fits the various course of human age;
Till as the earthly part decays and falls,

The captive breaks her prifon's mouldering walls;

Hovers a while upon the fad remains,
Which now the pile or fepulchre contains;
And thence with liberty unbounded flies,
Impatient to regain her native skies?

Whate'er thou art, where-e'er ordain'd to go,
(Points which we rather may dispute than know)
Come on, thou little inmate of this breaft,
Which for thy fake from paffions I divest,
For thefe, thou fay'ft, raise all the ftormy ftrife,
Which hinder thy repose, and trouble life.
Be the fair level of thy actions laid,
As temperance wills, and prudence may perfuade:
Be thy affections undisturb'd and clear,
Guided to what may great or good appear,
And try if life be worth the liver's care.

Amafs'd in man, there juftly is bebeld What through the whole creation has excell'd: The life and growth of plants, of beasts the fenfe, The angel's forecaft and intelligence: Say from these glorious feeds what harvest flows, Recount our bleffings, and compare our woes. In its true light let clearest reafon fee The man dragg'd out to act, and forc'd to be; Helpless and naked, on a woman's knees To be expos'd and rear'd as she may please, Feel her neglect, and pine from her disease: His tender eye by too direct a ray Wounded, and flying from unpractis'd day; His heart affaulted by invading air. And beating fervent to the vital war; To his young fense how various forms appear, That strike his wonder, and excite his fear: By his distortions he reveals his pains; He by his tears and by his fighs complains; Till time and use aflift the infant wretch, By broken words and rudiments of speech, His wants in plainer characters to fhow, And paint more perfect figures of his woe; Condem'd to facrifice his childish years To babbling ignorance, and to empty fears; To pass the riper period of his age, Acting his part upon a crowded stage; To lafting toils expos'd, and endless cares, To open dangers, and to fecret fnares ; To malice which the vengeful foe intends, And the more dangerous love of feeming friends. His deeds examin'd by the people's will, Prone to forget the good, and blame the ill; Or fadly cenfur'd in their curs'd debate, Who, in the fcorner's or the judge's feat, Dare to condemn the virtue which they hate. Or, would he rather leave this frantic scene, And trees and beafts prefer to courts and men, In the remoteft wood and lonely grot Certain to meet that worst of evils, thought; Different ideas to his memory brought, Some intricate as are the pathlefs woods, Impetuous fome as the defcending floods; With anxious doubts, with raging paflions torn, No fweet companion near, with whom to mourn,

He hears the echoing rock return his fighs, And from himself the frighted hermit flies.

Thus, through what path foe'er of life we rove,
Rage companies our hate, and grief our love.
Vex'd with the prefent moment's heavy gloom,
Why feek we brightness from the years to come?
Disturb'd and broken like a fick man's fleep,
Our troubled thoughts to diftant profpects leap,
Delirous ftill what flies us to o'ertake,

For hope is but the dream of those that wake:
But, looking back, we see the dreadful train
Of woes anew, which were we to sustain,
We should refufe to tread the path again;
Still adding grief, still counting from the first,
Judging the latest evils still the worst,
And fadly finding each progreffive hour
Heighten their number and augment their power,
Till, by one countless fum of woes oppreft,
Hoary with cares, and ignorant of reft,
We find the vital springs relax'd and worn,
Compell'd our common impotence to mourn,
Thus through the round of age to childhood we

return;

Reflecting find, that naked from the womb
We yesterday came forth; that in the tomb
Naked again we muft to-morrow lie,

Born to lament, to labour, and to die.

Pafs we the ills which each man feels or dreads, The weight or fallen or hanging o'er our heads; The bear, the lion, terrors of the plain, The fheepfold fcatter'd, and the fhepherd flain; The frequent errors of the pathlefs wood, The giddy precipice, and the dangerous flood; The noifome peftilence, that in open war Terrible marches through the mid-day air, And scatters death; the arrow that by night Cuts the dank mist, and fatal wings its flight; The billowing fnow, and violence of the fhower," That from the hills difperfe their dreadful store, And o'er the vales collected ruin pour ;

The worm that gnaws the ripening fruit, fad gueft.

Canker or locuft, hurtful to infest
The blade; while husks elude the tiller's care,
And eminence of want diftinguishes the year.

Pafs we the flow disease, and subtle pain,
Which our weak frame is deftin'd to fuftain;
The cruel stone with congregated war
Tearing his bloody way; the cold catarrh,
With frequent impulfe, and continued ftrife,
Weakening the wafted feats of irksome life;
The gout's fierce rack, the burning fever's rage,,
The fad experience of decay; and age,
Herself the foreft ill; while death and ease,
Oft' and in vain invok'd or to appease
Or end the grief, with hafty wings recede
From the vext patient and the fickly bed.

Nought fhall it profit, that the charming fair,
Angelic, fofteft work of heaven, draws near
To the cold fhaking paralytic hand,
Senfelefs of beauty's touch, or love's command;
Nor longer apt or able to fulfil

The dictates of its feeble master's will.
Nought fhall the pfaltry and the harp avail,
The pleasing fong, or well-repeated tale,

When the quick fpirits their warni march forbear,
And numbing coldness has unbrac'd the ear.

The verdant rising of the flowery hill,
The vale enamell'd, and the cryftal rill,'
The ocean rolling and he fhelly fhore,
Beautiful objects, fhall delight no more,
When the lax'd finews of the weaken'd eye
In watery damps or din fuffufion lie.
Day follows night; the clouds return again
After the falling of the latter rain;
But to the aged-blind fhall ne'er return
Grateful viciffitude: he still mu mourn
The fun, and moon, and every starry light,
Eclips'd to him, and loft in everlasting night.

Behold where age's wretched victim lies,
See his head trembling, and his half-clos'd eyes;
Frequent for breath his panting bofom heaves;
To broken fleep his remnant fense he gives,
And only by his pains, awaking, finds he lives.
Las'd by devouring time, the filver cord
Diffever'd lies; unhonour'd from the board
The cryftal urn, when broken, is thrown by,
And apter utenfils their place supply
Thefe things and thou must share one equal lot,
Die and be loft, corrupt and be forgot;
While ftill another and another race
Shall now fupply, and now give up the place;
From earth all came, to earth must all return,
Frail as the cord, and brittle as the urn.

But be the terror of thefe ills fupprefs'd,
And view we man with health and vigour bleft.
Home he returns with the declining fun,
His deftin'd task of labour hardly done;
Goes forth again with the afcending ray,
Again his travel for his bread to pay,
And find the ill fufficient to the day.
Haply at night he does with horror fhun
A widow'd daughter or a dying fon;
His neighbour's offspring he to-morrow fees,
And doubly feels his want in their increase;
The next day, and the next, he must attend
His foe triumphant, or his buried friend.
In every act and turn of life he feels
Public calamities, or household ills;
The due reward to juft defert refus'd,
The truft betray'd, the nuptial bed abus'd;
The judge corrupt, the long-depending cause,
And doubtful iffue of misconstrued laws;
The crafty turns of a dishonest Rate,

And violent will of the wrong-doing great;
The venom'd tongue, injurious to his fame,
Which nor can wifdom fhun, nor fair advice re-
claim.

Efteem we thefe, my friends, event and chance,
Produc'd as atoms from their fluttering dance?
Or higher yet their effence may we draw
From deftin'd order and eternal law?
Again, my mufe, the cruel doubt repeat:
Spring they, I fay, from accident or fate:
Yet fuch we find they are as can control
The fervile actions of our wavering foul:
Can fright, can alter, or can chain, the will;
Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.

O fatal fearch in which the labouring mind, Still prefs'd with weight of woe, ftill hopes to find

¦ A shadow of delight, a dream of peace,
From years of pain one moment of release;
Hoping at least she may herself deceive,
Againft experience willing to believe,
Defirous to rejoice, condemn'd to grieve.

Happy the mortal man, who now at last
Has through this doleful vale of mifery past,
Who to his deftin'd ftage has carry'd on
The tedious load, and laid his burden down;
Whom the cut brafs, or wounded marble, fhowS
Victor o'er life, and all her train of woes.
He, happier yet, who, privileg'd by fate
To fhorter labour and a lighter weight,
Receiv'd but yesterday the gift of breath,
Order'd to morrow to return to death.
But O. beyond description happiest he,
Who ne'er must roll on life's tumultuous fea;
Who, with blefs'd freedom, from the general
doom

Exempt, must never force the teeming womb,
Nor fee the fun, nor fink into the tomb!

Who breathes, must suffer; and who thinks,
must mourn;

And he alone is blefs'd, who ne'er was born.

"Yet in thy turn, thou frowning Preacher, hear: "Are not thefe general maxims too fevere? "Say cannot power fecure its owner's blifs? "And is not wealth the potent fire of peace? “Are victors bless'd with fame, or kings with cafe ?"

I tell thee, life is but one common care,
And man was born to fuffer, and to fear.
"But is no rank, no ftation, no degree,
"From this contagious taint of forrow free?”
None, mortal! none. Yet in a bolder frain
Let me this melancholy truth maintain.
But hence, ye worldly and profane, retire;
For I adapt my voice, and raise my lyre,
To notions not by vulgar ear receiv'd:
Ye till must covet life, and be deceiv'd;
Your very fear of death fhall make you try
To catch the shade of immortality;
Wishing on earth to linger, and to fave
Part of its prey from the devouring grave;
To those who may furvive you to bequeath
Something entire, in spite of time and death;
A fancy'd kind of being to retrieve,

And in a book, or from a building, live.
Falle hope! vain labour let f me ages fly,
The dome fhail moulder, and the volume die:
Wretches, ftill taught, ftill will ye think it firange,
That all the parts of this great fabric change,
Quit their old ftation, and primeval frame,
And lofe their shape, their effence, and their name?
Reduce the fong: our hopes, our joys, are vain;
Our lot is forrow, and our portion pain.

What pause from woe, what hopes of comfort
bring

The name of wife or great, of judge or king?
What is a king?—a man condemn'd to bear
The public burden of the nation's care;
Now crown'd fome angry faction to appeafe;
Now falls a victim to the people's ease;
From the first blooming of his ill taught youth,
Nourish'd in flattery, and cftrang'd from truth;

When of God's image only eight he found Snatch'd from the watery grave, aud fav'd from nations drown'd;

And of three fons, the future hopes of earth,
The feed whence empires must receive their
birth,

One he forefees excluded heavenly grace,
And mark'd with curfes, fatal to his race!

Abraham, potent prince, the friend of God,
Of human ills muft bear the deftin'd load;
By blood and battles muft his power maintain,
And flay the monarchs ere he rules the plain;
Muft deal juft portions of a fervile life
To a proud handmaid and a peevish wife;

Yet the unwilling truth may be exprefs'd,
Which long has labour'd in this pensive breaft :
Dying, he added to my weight of care;
He made me to his crimes undoubted heir;
Left his unfinish'd murder to his son,
And Joab's blood entail'd on Judah's crown.
Young as I was, I hasted to fulfil
The cruel dictates of my parent's will.
Of his fair deeds a diftant view I took,
But turn'd the tube, upon his faults to look,
Forgot his youth, spent in his country's cause,
His care of right, his reverence to the laws;
But could with joy his years of folly trace,
Broken and old in Bathsheba's embrace;

In want to wander, and in wilds to groan;
Muft take his other child, his age's hope,
To trembling Moriam's melancholy top,
Order'd to drench his knife in filial blood,
Deftroy his heir, or difobey his God.

Mofes beheld that God; but how beheld?
The Deity in radiant beams conceal'd,
And clouded in a deep abyfs of light;

While prefent, too fevere for human fight,ight.}

The following days, and months, and years, decreed

To fierce encounter, and to toilfome deed.

His youth, with wants and hardships must engage;

Plots and rebellions muft difturb his age:
Some Corah ftill arose, some rebel flave,
Prompter to fink the ftate, than he to fave:
And Ifrael did his rage fo far provoke,
That what the Godhead wrote, the prophet broke,
His voice fcarce heard, his dictates fcarce believ'd.
In camps, in arms, in pilgrimage, he liv'd;
And dy'd obedient to fevereft law,
Forbid to tread the promis'd land he faw.

My father's life was one long line of care,
A scene of danger, and a state of war.
Alarm'd, expos'd, his childhood must engage
The bear's rough gripe, and foaming lion's rage.
By various turns his threaten'd youth must fear
Goliah's lifted fword, and Saul's emitted fpear.
Forlorn he muft and perfecuted fly,
Climb the fteep mountain, in the cavern lie,
And often ask, and be refus'd, to die.

For ever, from his manly toil, are known
The weight of power, and anguish of a crown.
What tongue can speak the reftlefs monarch's
woes,

When God and Nathan were declar'd his foes?
When every object his offence revil'd,

The husband murder'd, and the wife defil'd,
The parent's fins imprefs'd upon the dying (

child?

good,

And cite his fad example, whilft I trod

Paths open to deceit, and track'd with blood.
Soon docile to the fecret acts of ill,
With fmiles I could betray, with temper kill;
Soon in a brother could a rival view,
Watch all his acts, and all his ways pursue.
In vain for life he to the altar filed:
Ambition and revenge have certain speed.
Ev'n there, my foul, ev'n there he should have
fell,

But that my intereft did my rage conceal.
Doubling my crime, I promife, and deceive,
Purpose to flay, whilt fwearing to forgive.
Treaties, perfuafions, fighs, and tears, are vain;
With a mean lie curs'd vengeance I sustain,
Join fraud to force, and policy to power,
Till, of the deftin'd fugitive fecure,
In folemn ftate to parricide I rife,
And, as God lives, this day my brother dies.
Be witness to my tears, celeftial muse;
In vain I would forget, in vain excufe,
Fraternal blood by my direction fpilt;
In vain on Joab's head transfer the guilt:
The deed was acted by the subject's hand;
The fword was pointed by the king's command.
Mine was the murder; it was mine alone:
Years of contrition must the crime atone;
Nor can my guilty foul expect relief,
But from a long fincerity of grief.

With an imperfect hand, and trembling heart,
Her love of truth fuperior to her art,
Already the reflecting mufe has trac'd
The mournful figures of my actions past.
The penfive goddess has already taught
How vain is hope, and how vexatious thought;
From growing childhood to declining age,
How tedious every step, how gloomy every stage,
This course of vanity almost complete,
-Tir'd in the field of life, I hope retreat

In the still shades of death: for dread and pain, And griefs, will find their fhafts elanc'd in vain, And their points broke, retorted from the head, Safe in the grave, and free among the dead.

Yet tell me, frighted reafon what is death? Blood only stopp'd, and interrupted breath; The utmost limit of a narrow span, And end of motion which with life began. As smoke that rifes from the kindling fires Is feen this moment, and the next expires;