What beckoning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? 'Tis she!--but why that bleeding bosom gored, Why dimly gleams the visionary sword? Oh, ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender, or too firm a heart, To act a lover's or a Roman's part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think, or bravely die? 10 Why bade ye else, ye Powers! her soul aspire Above the vulgar flight of low desire? Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of angels and of gods: Thence to their images on earth it flows, And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows. Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age, Dull, sullen prisoners in the body's cage: Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres; 20 Like Eastern kings a lazy state they keep, And, close confined to their own palace, sleep. From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky. As into air the purer spirits flow, And separate from their kindred dregs below; So flew the soul to its congenial place, Nor left one virtue to redeem her race. But thou, false guardian of a charge too good, Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood! 30 See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, These cheeks, now fading at the blast of death; Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before, And those love-darting eyes must roll no more. Thus, if Eternal Justice rules the ball, Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall: On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates. There passengers shall stand, and pointing say, (While the long funerals blacken all the way) 40 'Lo, these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd, And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.' Thus unlamented pass the proud away, The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow For others' good, or melt at others' woe.