Thou art for dearer ties by much too dear, } And nearer must not be, thou art so very near. } Nay, do not reason, prudence, pride agree, Our very feelings, that it must not be? 440 Nay, look not so, I shun the task no more, But will to thee thy better self restore. “Then hear, and hope not; to the tale I tell Attend! obey me, and let all be well. Love is forbad to me, and thou wilt find All thy too ardent views must be resign’d; Then from thy bosom all such thoughts remove, And spare the curse of interdicted love. “If doubts at first assail thee, wait awhile, Nor mock my sadness with satiric smile; 450 For, if not much of other worlds we know, Nor how a spirit speaks in this below, Still there is speech and intercourse; and now } The truth of what I tell I first avow: } True will I be in all, and be attentive thou. } * * * * * “I was a Ratcliffe, taught and train’d to live In all the pride that ancestry can give; My only brother, when our mother died, Fill’d the dear offices of friend and guide; My father early taught us all he dared, 460 And for his bolder flights our minds prepared: He read the works of deists, every book From crabbed Hobbes to courtly Bolingbroke; And when we understood not, he would cry, ‘Let the expressions in your memory lie, The light will soon break in, and you will find Rest for your spirits, and be strong of mind!’ “Alas! however strong, however weak, The rest was something we had still to seek! “He taught us duties of no arduous kind, 470 The easy morals of the doubtful mind; He bade us all our childish fears control, And drive the nurse and grandam from the soul; Told us the word of God was all we saw, And that the law of nature was his law; This law of nature we might find abstruse, But gain sufficient for our common use. “Thus, by persuasion, we our duties learn’d, And were but little in the cause concern’d. We lived in peace, in intellectual ease, 480 And thought that virtue was the way to please, And pure morality the keeping free From all the stains of vulgar villany. “But Richard, dear enthusiast! shunn’d reproach; He let no stain upon his name encroach; But fled the hated vice, was kind and just, That all must love him, and that all might trust. “Free, sad discourse was ours; we often sigh’d To think we could not in some truths confide. Our father’s final words gave no content; 490 We found not what his self-reliance meant. To fix our faith some grave relations sought, } Doctrines and creeds of various kind they brought, } And we as children heard what they as doctors taught. } “Some to the priest referr’d us, in whose book No unbeliever could resisting look; Others to some great preacher’s, who could tame The fiercest mind, and set the cold on flame;