Blefs'd with thy prefence, I could all forget,
Nor gilded palaces in huts regret,

But exil'd thence, fuperfluous is the reft,
Each place the fame, my hell is in my breast;
To pleasure dead, and living but to pain,
My only fenfe to fuffer, and complain.

As all my wrongs distressful I repeat,

Say, can thy pulse with equal cadence beat?

Can'ft thou know peace? is conscience mute within ?

That upright delegate for fecret fin;

Is nature fo extinguish'd in thy heart,

That not one fpark remains to take my part?
Not one repentant throb, one grateful figh?

Thy breaft unruffled, and unwet thy eye?
Thou cool betrayer, temperate in ill!

Thou nor remorse, nor thought humane can'ft feel:
Nature has form'd thee of the rougher kind,
And education more debas'd thy mind,

Born in an age when guilt and fraud prevail,
When Juftice fleeps, and Int'reft holds the scale;
Thy loose companions a licentious crew,
Moft to each other, all to us untrue,

Whom chance, or habit mix, but rarely choice,
Nor leagu❜d in friendship, but in focial vice,
Who indigent of honour, or of fhame,
Glory in crimes which others blush to name;
By right or wrong difdaining to be mov'd,
Unprincipled, unløving, and unlov'd.

VOL. IV.

F

The

斗

The fair who trufts their prostituted vows,
If not their falfhood, ftill their boasts expose;
Nor knows the wifeft to elude the harm,

Ev'n fhe whose prudence fhuns the tinfel charm
They know to flander, though they fail to warm:
They make her languish in fictitious flame,
Affix some specious flander on her name,
And baffled by her virtue, triumph o'er her fame.
These are the leaders of thy blinded youth,
These vile feducers laugh'd thee out of truth;
Whofe fcurril jefts all folemn ties profane,

Or Friendship's band, or Hymen's facred chain;
Morality as weakness they upbraid,

Nor even revere Religion's hallow'd head;
Alike they spurn divine and human laws,
And treat the honeft like the chriftian caufe.
Curfe on that tongue whose vile pernicious art
Delights the ear but to corrupt the heart,
That takes advantage of the chearful hour,
When weaken'd Virtue bends to Nature's pow'r,
And would the goodness of the foul efface,
To substitute dishonour in her place.

With fuch you lofe the day in falfe delights,

In lewd debauch you revel out the nights,

(O fatal commerce to Monimia's peace!)

Their arguments convince because they please;
Whilft fophiftry for reason they admit,

And wander dazzled by the glare of wit,

}

}

Wit that on ill a fpecious luftre throws,
And in falfe colours ev'ry object shows,
That gilds the wrong, depreciating the right,
And hurts the judgment, while it feasts the fight;
So in a prifm to the deluded eye

Each pictur'd trifle takes a rainbow dye,

With borrow'd charms the fhining profpect glows,
And truth revers'd the faithlefs mirror fhows.
Inverted scenes in bright confusion lie,

The lawns impending o'er the nether sky ;
No juft, no real images we meet,

But all the gaudy vifion is deceit,

Oft I revolve in this diftracted mind

Each word, each look, that fpoke my charmer kind;
But oh! how dear their memory I pay!

What pleasures paft can prefent cares allay?

Of all I love for ever difpoffefs'd :

Ah! what avails to think I once was blefs'd?

Hard difpofition of unequal fate!

Mix'd are our joys, and tranfient are their date;

Nor can reflection bring them back again,

Yet brings an after-fting to ev'ry pain.
Thy fatal letters, oh immoral youth,
Those perjur'd pledges of fictitious truth,
Dear as they were no fecond joy afford,
My cred❜lous heart once leap'd at ev'ry word,

My glowing bofom throbb'd with thick-heav'd fighs,
And floods of rapture gush'd into my eyes:
F 2

When

When now repeated (for thy theft was vain,
Each treasur❜d fyllable my thoughts retain)
Far other paffions rule, and diff'rent care,
My joys and grief, my transports and despair.
Why doft thou mock the ties of conftant love?
But half its joys the faithless ever prove,
They only taste the pleasures they receive,
When fure the noblest is in those we give.
Acceptance is the heav'n which mortals know,
But 'tis the blifs of angels to bestow.
Oh! emulate, my love, that task divine,

Be thou that angel, and that heav'n be mine.
Yet, yet relent, yet intercept my fate :
Alas! I rave, and fue for new deceit.

As foon the dead fhall from the grave return,
As love extinguish'd with new ardor burn.
Oh! that I dar'd to act a Roman part,
And ftab thy image in this faithful heart,
Where riveted for life fecure you reign,
A cruel inmate, author of my pain:-
But coward-like irrefolute I wait

Time's tardy aid, nor dare to rush on fate;
Perhaps may linger on life's latest stage,
Survey thy cruelties, and fall by age:

No-grief fhall fwell my fails, and speed me o'er
(Despair my pilot) to that quiet shore

Where I can trust, and thou betray no more.

Might I but once again behold thy charms,
Might I but breathe my last in those dear arms,
On that lov'd face but fix my closing eye,
Permitted where I might not live to die,
My foften❜d fate I wou'd accuse no more;
But fate has no fuch happiness in ftore.
"Tis past, 'tis done-what gleam of hope behind,
When I can ne'er be falfe, nor thou be kind?
Why then this care?—'tis weak-'tis vain-farewel
At that laft word what agonies I feel!

I faint-I die-remember I was true

'Tis all I ask-eternally—adieu !—