hsafes to call her own.
We gaze, we weep; mix'd tears of grief and joy! 680
Amazement strikes! devotion bursts to flame!
Christians adore! and infidels believe!
As some tall tower,[9] or lofty mountain's brow,
Detains the sun, illustrious, from its height;
While rising vapours, and descending shades,
With damps, and darkness, drown the spacious vale;
Undamp'd by doubt, undarken'd by despair,
Philander, thus, augustly rears his head,
At that black hour, which general horror sheds
On the low level of th' inglorious throng: 690
Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and humble joy,
Divinely beam on his exalted soul;
Destruction gild, and crown him for the skies,
With incommunicable lustre, bright.

NARCISSA.

TO HER GRACE
THE DUCHESS OF P----.[10]

Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.--Virg.

NIGHT THIRD.

NARCISSA.

From dreams, where thought in fancy's maze runs mad,
To reason, that heaven-lighted lamp in man,
Once more I wake; and at the destined hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn,
I keep my assignation with my woe.
Oh! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought,
Lost to the noble sallies of the soul!
Who think it solitude to be alone.
Communion sweet! communion large and high!
Our reason, guardian angel, and our God! 10
Then nearest these, when others most remote;
And all, ere long, shall be remote, but these.
How dreadful, then, to meet them all alone,
A stranger! unacknowledged, unapproved!
Now woo them, wed them, bind them to thy breast;
To win thy wish, creation has no more.
Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend--
But friends, how mortal! dangerous the desire.
Take Phoebus to yourselves, ye basking bards! 19
Inebriate at fair fortune's fountain-head;
And reeling through the wilderness of joy;
Where sense runs savage, broke from reason's chain,
And sings false peace, till smother'd by the pall.
My fortune is unlike; unlike my song;
Unlike the deity my song invokes.
I to Day's soft-eyed sister pay my court
(Endymion's rival!), and her aid implore;
Now first implored in succour to the Muse.
Thou, who didst lately borrow[11] Cynthia's form,
And m