Expanded shine with azure, green, and gold;
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
His flight PHILANDER took; his upward flight,
If ever soul ascended. Had he dropp'd,
(That eagle genius!) O had he let fall

One feather as he flew; I then had wrote,
What friends might flatter; prudent foes forbear;
Rivals scarce damn; and ZOILUS reprieve.
Yet what I can, I must: it were profane
To quench a glory lighted at the skies,
And cast in shadows his illustrious close.
Strange! the theme most affecting, most sublime,
Momentous most to man, should sleep unsung!
And yet it sleeps, by genius unawaked,
Painim or Christian; to the blush of wit.
Man's highest triumph! man's profoundest fall!
The death-bed of the just! is yet undrawn
By mortal hand; it merits a divine:
Angels should paint it, angels ever there;
There, on a post of honour, and of joy.

Dare I presume, then? But PHILANDER bids;
And glory tempts, and inclination calls-
Yet am I struck; as struck the soul, beneath
Aërial groves' impenetrable gloom ;

Or, in some mighty ruin's solemn shade;
Or, gazing by pale lamps on high-born dust,
In vaults; thin courts of poor unflatter'd kings;
Or, at the midnight altar's hallow'd flame.
It is religion to proceed: I pause—

And enter, awed, the temple of my theme.
Is it his death-bed? No; it is his shrine:
Behold him, there, just rising to a god.

The chamber where the good man meets his fate,

Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance,
That threw in this Bethesda your disease:
If unrestored by this, despair your cure:
For here, resistless demonstration dwells;
A death-bed's a detector of the heart.
Here, tired dissimulation drops her mask;
Through life's grimace, that mistress of the scene!
Here, real and apparent are the same.

You see the man; you see his hold on heaven:

If sound his virtue; as PHILANDER'S, sound.
Heaven waits not the last moment; owns her friends
On this side death; and points them out to men:

A lecture, silent, but of sovereign power!
To vice, confusion; and to virtue, peace.
Whatever farce the boastful hero plays,
Virtue alone has majesty in death;

And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns.
PHILANDER! he severely frown'd on thee.
"No warning given! Unceremonious fate!
A sudden rush from life's meridian joy!
A wrench from all we love! from all we are!
A restless bed of pain! a plunge opaque
Beyond conjecture! feeble nature's dread!
Strong reason's shudder at the dark unknown!
A sun extinguish'd! a just-opening grave!
And oh! the last, last, what? (can words express?
Thought reach it?) the last-silence of a friend!"
Where are those horrors, that amazement where,
This hideous group of ills (which singly shock)
Demands from man?-I thought him man till now.

Through nature's wreck, through vanquish'd agonies (Like the stars struggling through this midnight gloom),

What gleams of joy! what more than human peace!
Where the frail mortal? the poor abject worm?
No, not in death, the mortal to be found.
His conduct is a legacy for all,

Richer than Mammon's for his single heir.
His comforters he comforts; great in ruin,
With unreluctant grandeur, gives, not yields,
His soul sublime; and closes with his fate.

How our hearts burn'd within us at the scene! Whence this brave bound o'er limits fix'd to man? His God sustains him in his final hour!

His final hour brings glory to his God!

Man's glory heaven vouchsafes to call her own. We gaze, we weep; mix'd tears of grief and joy! Amazement strikes! devotion bursts to flame! Christians adore! and infidels believe!

As some tall tower, 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 the inglorious throng:

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.

MARCH 16. 1817.