Unlocks her casket, spreads her glitt'ring ware,
And calls the giddy winds to puff abroad
Her random bounties o'er the gaping throng.
All rush rapacious; friends o'er trodden friends,
Sons o'er their fathers, subjects o'er their kings,
Priests o'er their gods, and lovers o'er the fair,
(Still more adored) to snatch the golden show'r.
Gold gliters most where virtue shines no more,
As stars from absent suns have leave to shine.
O what a precious pack of votaries,
Unkennell❜d from the prisons and the stews,
Pour in, all op'ning in their idol's praise!
All, ardent, eye each wafture of her hand,
And, wide expanding their voracious jaws,
Morsel on morsel swallow down unchew'd,
Untasted, through mad appetite for more;
Gorged to the throat, yet lean and rav'nous still;
Sagacious all to trace the smallest game,
And bold to seize the greatest. If (blest chance!)
Court-zephyrs sweetly breathe, they launch, they fly
O'er just, o'er sacred, all-forbidden ground,
Drunk with the burning scent of place or pow'r,
Stanch to the foot of lucre till they die.
Or if for men you take them, as I mark
Their manners, thou their various fates survey.
With aim mismeasur'd and impetuous speed,
Some, darting, strike their ardent wish far off,
Through fury to possess it: some succeed,
But stumble, and let fall the taken prize.
From some, by sudden blasts, 'tis whirl'd away,
And lodged in bosoms that ne'er dream'd of gain.
To some it sticks so close, that, when torn off,
Torn is the man, and mortal is the wound.
Some, o'er-enamour'd of their bags, run mad,
Groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread.
Together some (unhappy rivals!) seize,
And rend abundance into poverty.
Loud croaks the raven of the law, and smiles; Smiles too the goddess; but smiles most at those (Just victims of exorbitant desire!)
Who perish at their own request, and whelm'd
Beneath her load of lavish grants, expire.
Fortune is famous for her numbers slain:
The number small which happiness can bear.
Though various for a while their fates, at last
One curse involves them all! at death's approach
All read their riches backward into loss,
And mourn in just proportion to their store.
And death's approach (if orthodox my song)
Is hasten'd by the lure of fortune's smiles.
And art thou still a glutton of bright gold?
And art thou still rapacious of thy ruin?
Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow;
A blow, which, while it executes, alarms,
And startles thousands with a single fall.
As when some stately growth of oak, or pine,
Which nods aloft, and proudly spreads her shade,
The sun's defiance, and the flock's defence,
By the strong strokes of lab'ring hinds subdued,
Loud groans her last, and, rushing from her height,
In cumb'rous ruin thunders to the ground;
The conscious forest trembles at the shock,
And hill, and stream, and distant dale resound.
These high-aim'd darts of death, and these alone,
Should I collect, my quiver would be full;
A quiver which, suspended in mid air,
Or near heav'n's archer, in the zodiac, hung,
(So could it be,) should draw the public eye,
The gaze and contemplation of mankind!
A constellation awful, yet benign,
To guide the gay through life's tempestuous wave,
Nor suffer them to strike the common rock;
'From greater danger to grow more secure,
And wrapt in happiness, forget their fate.'
Lysander, happy past the common lot,
Was warn'd of danger, but too gay to fear.
He woo'd the fair Aspasia; she was kind:
In youth, form, fortune, fame, they both were bless'd;
All who knew envied, yet in envy lov'd:
Can fancy form more finish'd happiness?
Fix'd was the nuptial hour.
Her stately dome
Rose on the sounding beach. The glitt'ring spires
Float in the wave, and break against the shore:
So break those glitt'ring shadows, human joys.
The faithless morning smiled; he takes his leave
To re-embrace, in ecstasies, at eve.
The rising storm forbids. The news arrives;
Untold, she saw it in her servant's eye.
She felt it seen (her heart was apt to feel;)
And drown'd, without the furious ocean's aid,
In suffocating sorrows, shares his tomb.
Now round the sumptuous bridal monument
The guilty billows innocently roar,
And the rough sailor, passing, drops a tear.
A tear?-can tears suffice?-but not for me.
How vain our efforts! and our arts how vain!
The distant train of thought I took, to shun,
Has thrown me on my fate.-These died together;
Happy in ruin! undivorced by death!
Or ne'er to meet or ne'er to part is peace.-
Narcissa, Pity bleeds at thought of thee;
Yet thou wast only near me, not myself.
Survive myself?-that cures all other woe.
Narcissa lives; Philander is forgot,
O the soft commerce! O the tender ties,
Close twisted with the fibres of the heart!
Which, broken, break them, and drain off the soul
Of human joy, and make it pain to live.—
And is it then to live? when such friends part,
'Tis the survivor dies.-My heart! no more.
FEW ages have been deeper in dispute about religion than this. The dispute about religion, and the practice of it, seldom go together. The shorter therefore the dispute, the better. I think it may be reduced to this single question-Is man immortal? or Is he not? If he is not, all our disputes are mere amusements, or trials of skill. In this case, truth, reason, religion, which give our discourses such pomp and solemnity, are (as will be shown) mere empty sounds without any meaning in them. if man is immortal, it will behove nim to be very serious about eternal consequences; or, in other words, to be truly religious. And this great fundamental truth, unestablished, or unawakened in the minds of men, is, I conceive, the real source and support of all our infidelity, how remote soever the particular objections advanced may seem to be from it.
Sensible appearances affect most men much more than abstract reasonings; and we daily see bodies drop around us, but the soul is invisible, The power which inclination has over the judgment, is greater than can be well conceived by those who have not had an experience of it; and of what numbers is it the sad interest, that souls should not survive! The Heathen world confessed, that they rather hoped than firmly believed immortality! and how many Heathens have we still among us! The sacred page assures us, that life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel: but by how many is the gospel
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