And, crazed with anguish, turns his frantic glare,

Raves to the wind, or breathes convulsive prayer:

Hah! 'tis his voice, that on the ravening gale Heaves the deep plaint, and pours the tender wail, It seems in fitful strains his woes to moan,

Or half suppressed remurmurs in a groan.

And can the scenes of idle tumult lend

One gleam of comfort for his perished friend?
Can social glee Iapian balms impart

To chase one anguish from his harrowed heart?
Yet shall RETIREMENT yield some mystic leaf

To staunch the wounds of solitary grief;

And, while in softer tones and milder woe
Round memory's eye the imaged sorrows flow,
Fond hope, as life decays, with sweet control (20)
To fancy's dreams shall harmonize his soul.

But when the passions, urged by darker strife,

Prey on the soul to burst the springs of life,

Or brood o'er human ills with sleepless care

To fix some purpose of convulsed despair;
If harshly doomed those deadly pangs to feel,
Which time can neʼer subdue, nor fancy heal,
To mark with frenzied glare parental pride
Frown on thy hopes, and crush thy destined bride;
Parental pride! whose withering prudence spies
No worth, but interest, thro its jaundiced eyes,

And stands unawed, in sacred fury wild,

The lustful murderer of its bartered child;

If such thy doom, with eager steps evade

The glen, the stream, the twilight, and the glade;

'Fly from thyself, nor rouse in sullen mood

The lurid thoughts, from hell's worst sorcery brewed;

Lest thy quick wrath indignant smite the air

With muttered curses on the blighted fair,

Or injured honor burn with impious ire

To point destruction on the guilty sire:

Fly the rich page, where gloomy genius drew
His WERTER bleeding, and his crazed ST. PREUX,
Where schemes of dreadful presage win the mind
In spells, that fasten, and in charms, that blind;
Lest in some hour, when cautious reason sleeps,
Thy weary footsteps pace Leucadian steeps,
Love, hatred, vengeance, death, thy soul divide,
And wroth distraction woo to suicide.

Nor seek the crowd, whose jealous vice lays bare In senseless rage the wounds of fixed despair;

Keen to destroy, there lurks the insidious smile,
Corrupt in hatred, and in kindness vile;

There lovelorn anguish claims no generous tear,

The look, half pity, kindling barbs a sneer.

Yea, as the funeral flames unwedded rose,

Disdained alliance, and abhorred to close,

When fierce in death the rival brothers lay, (21)

On the same pyre, in Thebes' disastrous day :

D

So be thy life from maddening riot free,

Its baleful commerce, and its heartless glee,

Eternal warfare urge thy closing breath,

And stern division triumph over death.

But on the breast of some fond friend recline,

Whose joys commune, whose sorrows melt with thine;

So shall a holier dew from heaven distilled,

Hush the sharp throb, and quench the sigh unwilled;

So pensive memory lose the sense of pain,
Charmed into peace beneath affection's reign.

Nor less we own SECLUSION's magic skill
To mould the temper, as she guides the will;
Beneath her shades the kindred virtues meet,

Blend in gay groups, and twine in union sweet;
Resigned their rage the fiery passions rest,

And gentlest musings woo the softened breast ;
Tranquil, yet bright, each beauteous image flows
To lull the soul in fancy's witched repose.

E'en those we love, more winning graces gain

From the strange sweetness of a twilight plain ;
We wake, we live, the talisman's control

With nice attraction draws the mellowed soul,
Joy swells the pulse, and pity's trembling sigh
Steals from each nerve responsive sympathy.

How blest that state, where mingling hearts unite,
Blend in desire, and hail the nuptial rite!
Then all is peace, for nature's charms combine

To sooth each passion, and each sense refine;
Then all is peace, and many an artless wile
Steals from domestic care its grateful smile;
Seductive converse flows from eye to eye,

Speaks in a tear, and utters in a sigh ;

Each wish declared, ere from the lips it part,
With magnet influence finds its kindred heart;
Each virtue brightened gives the soul to trace
In conscious love, its grandeur and its grace.

T