The cause how obvious, when his reason wakes! His grief is but his grandeur in disguise;

And discontent is immortality.

Shall sons of æther, shall the blood of heav'n,
Set up their hopes on earth, and stable here,
With brutal acquiescence in the mire?
LORENZO! no! they shall be nobly pain'd;
The glorious foreigners, distrest, shall sigh
On thrones; and thou congratulate the sigh:
Man's misery declares him born for bliss ;
His anxious heart asserts the truth I sing,
And gives the sceptic in his head the lye.
Our heads, our hearts, our passions, and our pow'rs,
Speak the same language; call us to the skies:
Unripen'd these in this inclement clime,
Scarce rise above conjecture, and mistake;
And for this land of trifles those too strong
Tumultuous rise, and tempest human life :
What prize on earth can pay us for the storm?
Meet objects for our passions heav'n ordain'd,
Objects that challenge all their fire, and leave
No fault, but in defect: Blest Heav'n! avert
A bounded ardor for unbounded bliss!

O for a bliss unbounded! Far beneath
A soul immortal, is a mortal joy.
Nor are our pow'rs to perish immature ;
But, after feeble effort here, beneath
A brighter sun, and in a nobler soil,
Transplanted from this sublunary bed,
Shall flourish fair, and put forth all their bloom.

Reason progressive, instinct is complete;

Swift instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs.
Brutes soon their zenith reach; their little all
Flows in at once; in ages they no more
Could know, or do, or covet, or enjoy.

Were man to live coëval with the sun,
The patriarch-pupil would be learning still;
Yet, dying, leave his lesson half unlearnt.
Men perish in advance, as if the sun

Should set ere noon, in eastern oceans drown'd;
If fit, with dim, illustrious to compare,
The sun's meridian with the soul of man.
To man, why, stepdame nature! so severe ?
Why thrown aside thy master-piece half-wrought,
While meaner efforts thy last hand enjoy?
Or, if abortively, poor man must die,

Nor reach, what reach he might, why die in dread?

Why curst with foresight? Wise to misery?

Why of his proud prerogative the prey?

Why less pre-eminent in rank, than pain?
His immortality alone can tell;
Full ample fund to balance all amiss,
And turn the scale in favour of the just!
His immortality alone can solve
The darkest of ænigmas, human hope;
Of all the darkest, if at death we die,
Hope, eager hope, th' assassin of our joy,
All present blessings treading under foot,
Is scarce a milder tyrant than despair,
With no past toils content, still planting new,

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London, Published Sept 23-1797. by Vernor & Hood.& the other Proprietors.

Hope turns us o'er to death alone for ease.
Possession, why more tasteless than pursuit ?
Why is a wish far dearer than a crown?
That wish accomplish'd, why, the grave of bliss?
Because, in the great future bury'd deep,
Beyond our plans of empire, and renown,
Lies all that man with ardor should pursue;
And HE who made him, bent him to the right.
Man's heart th' ALMIGHTY to the future sets,
By secret and inviolable springs;

And makes his hope his sublunary joy.

Man's heart eats all things, and is hungry still;
"More, more!" the glutton cries: For something new
So rages appetite, if man can't mount,

He will descend. He starves on the possest.
Hence, the world's master, from ambition's spire,
In Caprea plung'd; and div'd beneath the brute.
In that rank sty why wallow'd empire's son
Supreme? Because he could no higher fly;
His riot was ambition in despair.

Old Rome consulted birds; LORENZO! thou
With more success, the flight of hope survey;
Of restless hope, for ever on the wing.
High-perch'd o'er ev'ry thought that falcon sits,
To fly at all that rises in her sight;

And never stooping, but to mount again
Next moment, she betrays her aim's mistake,
And owns her quarry lodg'd beyond the grave.
There should it fail us (it must fail us there,
If being fails) more mournful riddles rise,