Death has no dread, but what frail life imparts;
Nor life true joy, but what kind death improves.
No blifs has life to boast, till death can give
Far greater; life's a debtor to the grave,
Dark lattice! letting in eternal day.
Lorenzo! blush at fondness for a life,
Which fends celeftial fouls on errands vile,
To catter for the sense; and ferve at boards,
Where ev'ry ranger of the wilds, perhaps
Each reptile, juftly claims our upper hand.
Luxurious feast! a foul, a foul immortal,
In all the dainties of a brute bemir'd!
Lorenzo! blush at terror for a death,
Which gives thee to repofe in feftive bowers,
Where nectars fparkle, angels minifter,
And more than angels fhare, and raife, and crown,
And eternize the birth, bloom, burfts of blifs.
What need I more? O death, the palm is thine.
Then welcome, death! thy dreaded harbingers,
Age, and disease; disease, tho' long my guest;
That plucks my nerves, those tender ftrings of life;
Which, pluckt a little more, will toll the bell,
That calls my few friends to my funeral;
Where feeble nature drops, perhaps a tear,
While reafon and religion, better taught,
Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory;
It binds in chains the raging ills of life:
Luft and ambition, wrath and avarice,
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power.
That ills corrofive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O death! is thine.
Our day of diffolution!-name it right;
'Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich
And ripe: what tho' the fickle, fometimes keen,
Juft fcars us as we reap the golden grain?
More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound.
Birth's feeble, cry, and death's deep difmal groan,
Are flender tributes low-taxt nature pays
For mighty gain; the gain of each, a life!
But O! the last the former so transcends,
Life dies, compar'd; life lives beyond the grave.
And feel I, death! no joy from thought of thee?
Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires
With ev'ry nobler thought, and fairer deed!
Death, the deliv'rer, who refcues man!
Death, the rewarder, who the refcu'd crowns!
Death, that abfolves my birth, a curfe without it!
Rich death, that realizes all my cares,
Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera!
Death, of all pain the period, not of joy;
Joy's fource and fubject, ftill fubfift unhurt;
One, in my foul;
and one, in her great fire;
Tho' the four winds were warring for my
Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night,
Tho' prifon'd there, my duft too l reclaim,
(To duft when drop proud nature's proudeft fpheres)
And live entire. Death is the crown of life;
Were death deny'd, poor man would live in vain ;
Were death deny'd, to live would not be life;
Were death deny'd, ev'n fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rife; we reign!
Spring from our fetters; faften in the skies;
Where blooming Eden withers in our fight:
Death gives us more than was in Eden loft.
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When shall I die? When shall I live for ever?
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