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, 610 Momentous most to man, should sleep unsung! And yet it sleeps, by genius unawaked, Paynim 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-- 620 Yet am I struck; as struck the soul, beneath Aerial 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. Is it 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. 630 The chamber where the good man meets his fate, 631 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, 640 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; 650 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? 660 Thought reach it?)--the last--silence of a friend!" Where are those horrors, that amazement, where, This hideous group of ills, which singly shock, Demand 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!