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Superior duty, thus the fage address’d:

• Fountain of light! from whom yon orient sun

First drew his fplendour ! Source of life and love! • Whose smile now wakes o’er earth's rekindling face • The boundless blush of fpring; O First and Best ! · Thy effence tho' from human fight and search,

Tho' from the climb of all created thought • Ineffably remov'd, yet man himself,

Thy lowest child of Reason, man may read • Unbounded pow'r, intelligence supreme, • The Maker's hand, on all his works imprefs'd • In characters coëval with the sun, • And with the fun to last; from world to world, • From age to age, in ev'ry clime, disclos'd, • Sole revelation thro' all time the fame. • Hail, univerfal Goodness! with full stream • For ever Aowing from beneath the throne $ Thro' earth, air, fea, to all things that have life; • From all that live on earth, in air and fea, • The great community of Nature's fons, • To thee, firft Father, ceaseless praise ascend! • And in the rev'rent hymn my grateful voice • Be duly heard, among thy works not least, • Nor lowest, with intelligence inform'd, • To know thee, and adore ; with free-will crown'd, • Where Virtue leads, to follow and be bless’d. i• 0, whether by thy prime decree ordain'd

To days of future life; or whether now, • The mortal hour'is inftant, ftill vouchsafe, • Parent and friend, to guide me blameless on • Thro' this dark scene of error and of ill, • Thy truth to lighé me, and thy peace to chear : • All else, of me unask'd, thy will supreme • Withold or grant, and let that will be done.?

This from the soul in silence breath'd fincere, The hill's steep fide with firm elastick step

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He lightly scald; fuch health the frugal board,
The morn's fresh breath that exercise respires
In mountain walks, and conscience free from blame,
Our life's best cordial can thro' age prolong.
There, loft in thought, and self-abandon’d, lay
The man unknown, nor heard approach his hoft,
Nor rais'd his drooping head. Aurelius, mov'd
By soft compassion, which the savage scene,
Shut up and barr'd amid surrounding seas
From human commerce, quicken'd into sense
Of sharper sorrow, thus apart began.

• O sight, that from the eye of Wealth or Pride, - E'en in their hour of vainest thought, might draw • A feeling tear! whom yesterday beheld

By love and fortune crown'd, of all poffefs'd • That fancy, tranc'd in faireft vifion, dreams; • Now loft to all, each hope that softens life, • Each bliss that chears ; there on the damp earth spread, • Beneath a heav'n unknown, behold him now ! • And let the gay, the fortunate, the great, • The proud, be taught what now the wretched feel, • The happy have to fear. O man forlorn ! • Too plain I read thy heart, by fondness drawn * To this sad scene, to fights that but inflame • It's tender anguish !'• Hear me, Heav'n' ! exclaim'd The frantick mourner. Could that anguish rise "To madnefs and to mortal agony, " I yet would bless my fate ; by one kind pang, • From what I feel, the keener pangs of thought • For ever freed. To me the sun is loft ; - To me the future flight of days and years • Is darkness, is defpair-But who complains, Forgets that he can die. O, fainted maid !

For fuch in heav'n thou art, if from thy seat • Of holy reft, beyond these changeful skies,

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• If names on earth most sacred once and dear,
• A lover and a friend, if yet these names
• Can wake thy pity, dart one guiding ray
• To light me where, in cave or creek, are thrown
· Thy lifeless limbs, that I-O grief supreme !

175 • O fate remorseless! was thy lover fav’d • For such a talk !—that I those dear remains, • With maiden rites adorn'd, at last may lodge • Beneath the hallow'd vault, and weeping there • O'er thy cold urn, await the hour to close

180 « These eyes

in
peace,

and mix this duft with thine!'
• Such, and fo dire,' reply'd the cordial friend
In Pity's look and language, fuch, alas !
• Were late my thoughts : whate'er the human heart
· Can most afflict, grief, agony, despair,

185 · Have all been mine, and with alternate war • This bofom ravag'd. Hearken then, good youth !

My story mark; and, from another's fate,

Pre-eminently wretched, learn thy own, • Sad as it seems, to balance and to bear!

190 • In me, a man behold whose morn serene, • Whose noon of betier life, with honour spent,

In virtuous purpose or in honest act, • Drew fair diftin&ion on my publick name • From those among mankind, the nobler few,

195 ? Whose praise is fame ; but there, in that true source • Whence happiness with purest stream descends, * In home-found peace and love, fupremely bless'd! · Union of hearts, consent of wedded wills, • By friendfhip knit, by mutual faith secur'd,

Our hopes and fears, our earth and heav'n, the same! "At last, Amyntor, in my failing age • Fall’n from such height, and with the felon herd, · Robbers and outlaws, number'd--thought that still

Stings deep the heart, and cloathes the cheek with fame! 205 Then doom'd to feel what guilt alone should fear,

« The

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« The hand of publick vengeance ; arm’d by rage,
• Not justice ; rais'd to injure, not redress;

To rob, not guard ; to ruin, not defend ;
• And all,, O fov'reign Reason! all deriv'd
* From pow'r that claims thy warrant to do wrong!
• A right divine to violate unblam'd
• Each law, each rule, that, by himself observ'd,
• The God prescribes whose sanction kings pretend !

• O Charles ! O monarch! in long exile train’d,
• Whole hopeless years th' oppreffor's hand to know
• How hateful and how hard ; thyself reliev'd,
• Now hear! thy people, groaning under wrongs
• Of equal load, adjure thee by those days
• Of want and woe, of danger and despair,
• As Heav'n has thine, to pity their distress !

Yet from the plain good meaning of my heart
• Be far th' unhallow'd license of abuse ;
• Be far the bitterness of saintly zeal,
• That impious hid behind the patriot's name
• Masques hate and malice to the legal throne,
• In justice founded, circumscrib'd by laws,
• The prince to guard--but guard the people too ;
• Chief, one prime good to guard inviolate,
• Soul of all worth, and sum of human bliss,
• Fair Freedom ! birthright of all thinking kinds;
• Reason's Great Charter, from no king deriv'd,

By none to be reclaim'd, man's right divine;
• Which God, who gave, indelible pronounc'd !

• But if, disclaiming this his heav'n-own'd right,
• This first, best tenure, by which monarchs rule
• If, meant the blessing, he becomes the bane,
• The wolf, not shepherd, of his subject-flock,
• To grind and tear, not shelter and protect,
• Wide-wasting where he reigns—to such a prince
• Allegiance kept were treason to mankind,
. And loyalty revolt from virtue's law :

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• For fay, Amyntor! does juft Heaven enjoin
· That we should homage hell ? or bend the knee
• To earthquake or volcano, when they rage,

245 • Rend earth's firm frame, and in one boundless grave • Ingulph their thousands ? Yet, O grief to tell ! · Yet such, of late, o'er this devoted land • Was publick rule. Our servile stripes and chains, • Our fighs and groans resounding from the steep 250 • Of wint'ry hill, or waste untravell'd heath, • Last refuge of our wretchedness, not guilt, • Proclaim'd it loud to Heav'n: the arm of powr • Extended fatal but to crush the head • It ought to screen, or with a parent's love

255 • Reclaim from error; not with deadly hate, • The tyrant's law, exterminate who err,

• In this wide-rain were my fortunes funk; Myself, as one contagious to his kind, • Whom Nature, whom the social life, renounc'd, 260 • Unfummon'd, unimpleaded, was to death, • To shameful death! adjudg'd ; against my head • The price of blood proclaim'd, and at my heels • Let loose the murd'rous cry of human hounds: • And this blind fury of commission'd rage, • Of party vengeance, to a fatal foe,

Known and abhorr'd for deeds of direft name, • Was giv'nin charge ; a foe whom blood-stain'd zeal • For what-o hear it not, all-righteous Heav'n! • Left thy rousd thunder burft--for what was deem'd • Religion's cause, had favag'd to a brute • More deadly fell than hunger ever ftung • To prowl in'wood or wild. His band he arm'd, • Sons of perdition! miscreants with all guilt • Familiar, and in each dire art of death

275 • Train’d ruthless up: as tigers on their prey • On my defenceless lands thofe fiercer beasts Devouring fell ; nor that-sequekerd fhade,

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