Behold his muse sent out to explore

The unapparent deep, where waves of chaos roar, And realms of night unknown before.

She trac'd a glorious path unknown, Through fields of heavenly war, and seraphs overthrown,

Where his adventurous 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

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 unrivall'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.

13

THE COMPLAINT.

TO MR. NICHOLAS CLARK.

”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 climb'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 nurst 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.

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 unblest!

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.

Why was this life for misery made?
Or why drawn out so long?

Is there no room amongst the dead?
Or is a wretch too young?

Move faster on, great nature's wheel,
Be kind, ye rolling powers,
Hurl my days headlong down the hill
With undistinguish'd hours.

Be dusky, all my rising suns,

Nor smile upon a slave;

Darkness and death, make haste at once

To hide me in the grave.

1702.

THE REVERSE:

OR, THE COMFORTS OF A FRIEND.

THUS Nature tun'd her mournful tongue, Till Grace lift up her head,

Revers'd the sorrow and the song,

And, smiling, thus she said: