SUICIDE.

By THOMAS WARTON.

BENEATH the beech, whofe branches bard

Smit with the lightning's vivid glare,

O'erhang the craggy road,

And whiftle hollow as they wave;

Within a folitary grave,

A wretched Suicide holds his accurs3d abode,

Lowr'd the grim morn, in murky dies.
Damp mifts involv'd the fcowling (kies,
And dimm'd the ftruggling day;
As by the brook that ling'ring laves
Yon rufh-grown moor with fable waves,
Full of the dark refolve he took his fullen way,

I mark'd his defultory pace,

His geftures ftrange, and varying face

With many a mutter'd found;

And ah! too late, aghaft I view'd

The reeking blade, the hand embru'd,

He fell, and groaning grafp'd in agony the ground,

Full

O'er his fad couch, and in the balm Of bland oblivion's dews his burning eyes to fleep.

Full oft, unknowing and unknown,ɔub found i
He wore his endless noons alone, qusitan b. A
Amid th' autumnal wood:
Oft was he wont, in hafty fit, s

Abrupt the focial board to quit,

And gaze with eager glance upon the tumbling flood.

Beck'ning the wretch to torments new, w nad
Despair, for ever in his view,

A spectre pale, appear❜d;

While, as the fhades of eve arofe

५

And brought the day's unwelcome clofe,

More horrible and huge her giant-fhape the rear'd

"Is this," miftaken Scorn will cry,

Is this the youth, whofe genius high
"Could build the genuine rhyme?
"Whose bosom mild the fav'ring Muse

"Had flor'd with all her ample views, wh

Parent of faireft deeds, and purposes fublime ?"

AL!

Ah! from the Mufe that bofom mild
By treach'rous magic was beguil'd,

To ftrike the deathful blow:
She fill'd his foft ingenious mind
With many a feeling too refin'd,

And rous'd to livelier pangs his wakeful sense of woc,

Though doom'd hard penury to prove,
And the fharp ftings of hopeless love;
To griefs congenial prone,

More wounds than nature gave he knew,
While Mifery's form his fancy drew

In dark ideal hues, and horrors not its own.

Then with not o'er his earthly tomb
The baleful nightshade's lurid bloom
To drop its deadly dew:

Nor, oh! forbid the twifted thorn,
That rudely binds his turf forlorn,
With fpring's green-fwelling buds to vegetate answ

What though no marble-piled buft

Adorn his defolated duft,

With speaking fculpture wrought ?

Pity fhall woo the weeping Nine

To build a vifionary fhrine,

Hung with unfading flow'rs, from fairy regions brought

What

What though refus'd'each chanted rite ??
Here viewlefs mourners fhall delight

To touch the fhadowy fhell:

And Petrarch's harp, that wept the doom
Of Laura, lost in early bloom, or
In melancholy tones fhall ring his penfive knell,

To foothe a lone, unhallow'd fhade,
This votive dirge fad duty paid,

Within an ivy'd nook :

Sudden the half-funk orb of day

More radiant fhot its parting ray,

And thus a cherub-voice my charm'd attention took

"Forbear, fond bard, thy partial praise;

"Nor thus for guilt in fpecious lays

"The wreath of glory twine: "In vain with hues of gorgeous glow

"Gay Fancy gives her veft to flow,

Unless truth's matron-hand the floating folds confine

"Juft Heaven, man's fortitude to prove,

Permits through life at large to rove

"The tribes of hell-born woe;

Yet the fame Pow'r that wifely fends

Life's fierceft ills, indulgent lends

Religion's golden fhield to break th' embattled foc.

"Her

- ** Her aid divine had lull'd to refter D
"Yon foul felf-murtherer's throbbing breaft,
"And stay'd the rifing ftorm:
"Had bade the fun of hope appear

"To gild the darken'd hemifphere,

And give the wonted bloom to nature's blafted form.

"Vain man! 'tis heaven's prerogative
"To take, what first it deign'd to give,
"Thy tributary breath:

* In awful expectation plac'd,

"Await thy doom, nor impious hafte

To pluck from God's right hand his Inftruments of "death."

THE INCURIOUS.

HREE years in London Bobadil had been,

TH

Yet not the lions nor the tombs had feen;

I cannot tell the caufe without a smile

The rogue had been in Newgate all the while.

ODE