(To duft when drop proud nature's proudest spheres)*
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, e'en fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure; we fall, we rife, we reign! 530
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 thall I die?-when shall I live for ever?
Containing our only Cure for the Fear of Death; and proper Sentiments of Heart on that inestimable Bleffing.
TO THE HON. MR, YORKE.
MUCH indebted muse, O Yorke! intrudes.
Amid the fmiles of fortune, and of youth,
Thine ear is patient of a serious fong.
How deep implanted in the breast of man
The dread of death! I fing its fovereign cure.
Why start at Death? where is he?, Death arriv'd,
Is paft; not come or gone, he's never here.
Ere hope, fenfation fails; black-boding man
Receives, not fuffers, Death's tremendous blow.
The knell, the fhroud, the mattock, and the grave;
The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm; 11
Thefe are the bugbears of a winter's eve,
The terrors of the living, not the dead;
Imagination's fool, and Error's wretch.
Man makes a death which Nature never made;
Then on the point of his own fancy falls,
And feels a thoufand deaths in fearing one.
But were death frightful, what has age to fear?
If prudent, age fhould meet the friendly foe,
And fhelter in his hofpitable gloom.
I scarce can meet a monument, but holds
My younger; every date cries-" Come away.".
And what recals me? Look the world around,
And tell me what: the wifeft cannot tell.
Should any born of woman give his thought
Full range on juft Diflike's unbounded field;
Of things the vanity; of men, the flaws
Flaws in the beft; the many, flaw all o'er;
As leopard's fpotted, or as Ethiops dark;
Vivacious ill; good dying immature;
(How immature, Narciffa's marble tells!)
And at his death bequeathing endless pain;
His heart, though bold, would ficken at the fight,
And spend itself in fighs for future scenes.
But grant to life (and just it is to grant
To lucky life) fome perquifites of joy ;
A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale,
Long-rifled life of fweet can yield no more,
But from our comment on the comedy,
Pleafing reflections on parts well fuftain'd,
Or purpos'd emendations where we fail'd,
Or hopes of plaudits from our candid judge,
When on their exit fouls are bid unrobe,
Tofs Fortune back her tinfel, and her plume,
And drop this mask of flesh behind the icene.
With me, that time is come; my world is dead; A new world rifes, and new manners reign: Foreign comedians, a fpruce band! arrive, To push me from the scene, or hiss me there. What a pert race ftarts up! the stranger's gaze, And I at them; my neighbour is unknown; Nor that the worst: Ah me! the dire effect Of loitering here, of death defrauded long; Of old fo gracious (and let that suffice) My very mafter knows me not.
Shall I dare fay, peculiar is the fate? I've been fo long remember'd, I'm forget. An object ever preffing dims the fight,
And hides behind its ardour to be feen.
When in his courtiers ears I pour my plaint,
They drink it as the nectar of the great,
And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow.
Refufal! canft thou wear a smoother form?
Indulge, nor conceive I drop my theme:
Who cheapens life, abates the fear of death.
Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy,
Court favour, yet untaken, I befiege;
Ambition's ill-judg'd effort to be rich.
Alas! ambition makes my little less;
Embittering the poffeft: Why wish for more?
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst ;
Philofophy's reverfe and health's decay!
Were I as plump as ftall'd theology,
Wishing would waste me to this shade again.
Were I as wealthy as a South-fea dream,
Wishing is an expedient to be poor.
Wifhing, that conftant hectic of a fool;
Caught at a court, purg'd off by purer air
And fimpler diet; gifts of rural life!
Bleft be that hand divine, which gently laid
My heart at reft, beneath this humble fhed.
The world's a ftately bark, on dangerous feas,
With pleasure seen, but boarded at our peril;
Here, on a fingle plank, thrown safe afhore,
I hear the tumult of the diftant throng,
As that of feas remote, or dying ftorms:
And meditate on fcenes, more filent ftill;
Purfue my theme, and fight the fear of death.
Here, like a fhepherd gazing from his hut,
Touching his reed, or leaning on his staff,
Eager Ambition's fiery chace I fee;
I fee the circling hunt, of noify men,
Burft Law's enclosure, leap the mounds of Right,
Purfuing, and purfu'd, each other's prey;
As wolves, for rapine; as the fox, for wiles;
Till death, that mighty hunter, earths them all.
Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour? What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame?
Earth's highest station ends in, "Here he lies,”
And, "duft to duft," concludes her noblest song, roo
If this fong lives, pofterity fhall know
One, tho' in Britain born, with courtiers bred,
Who thought e'en gold might come a day too late,
Nor on his fubtle deathbed plann'd his scheme
For future vacancies in church or state,
Some avocation deeming it-to die;
Unbit by rage canine of dying rich,
Guilt's blunder! and the loudeft laugh of hell.
O my coevals! remnants of yourselves!
Poor human ruins tott'ring o'er the grave!
Shall we, fhall aged men, like aged trees,
Strike deeper their vile root, and closer cling,
Still more enamoured of this wretched foil?
Shall our pale wither'd hands be still stretch'd out,
Trembling at once with eagerness and age?
With av'rice and convulfions, grafping hard?
Grafping at air! for what has earth befide?
Man wants but little, nor that little long:
How foon must he refign his very duft,
Which frugal Nature lent him for an hour!
Years unexperienced rush on num'rous ills:
And foon as man, expert from time, has found
The key of life, it opes the gates of death.
When in this vale of years I backward look,
And mifs fuch numbers, numbers, too, of fuch 125
Firmer in health, and greener in their age,
And ftricter on their guard, and fitter far
To play life's fubtle game, I fcarce believe
I ftill furvive. And am I fond of life,
Who fcarce can think it poffible I live?
Alive by miracle! or, what is next,
Alive by Mead! if I am ftill alive,
Who long have bury'd what gives life to live,
Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought.
Life's lee is not more shallow than impure
And vapid: Senfe and Reafon fhew the door,
Call for my bier, and point me to the duft,
O thou great Arbiter of life and death,
F
Nature's immortal, immaterial fun!
Whofe all prolific beam late call'd me forth
From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay
The worm's inferior, and, in rank, beneath
The duft I tread on, high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,
And triumph in existence, and couldst know
No motive but my blifs, and haft ordain'd
A rile in bleffing! with the Patriarch's joy
Thy call I follow to the land unknown;
I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust:
Or life or death is equal; neither weighs;
All weight in this-O let me live to thee!
Tho' Nature's terrors thus may be represt,
Still frowns grim Death; guilt points the tyrant's fpear.
And whence all human guilt? From death forgot.
Ah me! too long I fet at nought the swarm
Of friendly warnings which around me flew,
And fmil'd unfinitten. Small my cause to smile!
Death's admonitions, like fhafts upwards fhot,
More dreadful by delay, the longer ere
They ftrike our hearts, the deeper is their wound: 160
O think how deep, Lorenzo! here it stings;
Who can appease its anguish? How it burns!
What hand the barb'd, envenom'd thought can draw?
What healing hand can pour the balm of peace,
And turn my fight undaunted on the tomb?
With joy-with grief, that healing hand I see :
Ah! too confpicuous! it is fix'd on high.
On high ?—what means my frenzy ? I blaspheme:
Alas how low how far beneath the skies!
The fkies it form'd, and now it bleeds for me- 170
But bleeds the balm I want-yet ftill it bleeds;
Draw the dire fteel-ah, no! the dreadful bleffing
What heart or can fuftain or dares forego?
There hangs all human hope; that nail supports
The falling univerfe: that gone we drop;
Horror receives us, and the difmal with
Creation had been fmother'd in her birth-
Darkness his curtain, and his bed the dust,
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