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And eternize the birth, bloom, burfts of blifs,
O feaft indeed luxurious! Earth, vile earth!
In all the glories of a God array'd!

What need I more? O Death, the palm is thine,
Then welcome death? thy dreaded harbingers,
Age, and difeafe; disease, tho' long my gueft:
That plucks my nerves, thofe tender ftrings of life;
Which, pluck'd 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 3:
It binds in chains the raging ills of life:
Luft and ambition, wrath and avarice,
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his pow'r.
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 harvelt, rich
And ripe: What tho' the fickle, fometimes keen
Juft fears 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-tax'd nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each a life!
But O! the laft the former so tranfcends,
Life dies, compar'd; Life lives beyond the grave.
And feel I, Death! no Joy from thought of thee?
Death the great councellor, who man infpires
With ev'ry nobler thought, and fairer deed!
Death, the deliverer, 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;
Joys fource and fubject, still fubfift unhurt;
One, in my foul; and one in her great Sire?

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Tho' the four winds were warring for my duft:
Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night,
Tho' prifon'd there, my duft too I 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 fhall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When fhall I die?.

-when fhall I live for ever

THE

COMPLAINT

NIGHT THE FOURTH.

THE CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH,

CONTAINING

SOUR ONLY CURE FOR THE FEAR OF DEATH;

AND

PROPER SENTIMENTS OF HEART ON THAT
INESTIMABLE BLESSING.

MUCH indebted mufe, O YORK! intrudes,

A 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 fov'reign cure.
Why ftart 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 shroud the mattock, and the grave ;
The deep damp vault, the darknefs and the worm:
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 thousand deaths in fearing one.

But where Death frightful, what has Age to fear? If prudent, Age fhould meet the friendly foe, And fhelter in his hofpitable gloom.

I fcarce 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 leopards fpotted, or as Ethiops dark;
Vivacious ill; good dying immature,
(How immature, NARCISSA's marble tells),
And at its death bequeathing endless pain;
His heart, tho' bold would ficken at the fight,
And spend itself in fighs for future scenes.

But grant to life (and juft it is to grant
Te lucky life) fome perquifites of joy;
A time there is, when like a thrice-told tale,
And that of no great moment or delight,
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 scene.
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 hifs me there.
What a pert race ftarts up! The ftrangers gaze,
And I at them; my neighbour is unknown:
Nor that the worft; ah me! the dire effect
Of loit'ring here, of death defrauded long;
Of old fo gracious (and let that fuffice)
My very mafter knows me not.

Shall I dare fay, peculiar is the fate?
I've been fo long remember'd, I'm forgot.
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 fqueeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow:
Refusal! canft thou wear a fmoother form?
Indulge me, nor conceive I drop my theme:
Who cheapens life, abates the fear of death.
Twice told the period fpent on ftubborn Troy,
Court favour, yet untaken, I befiege;
Ambition's ill judg'd effort to be rich.
Alas! ambition makes my little, lefs;
Embitt'ring the poffefs'd: Why wifh'd-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 fhade again.
Were I as wealthy as a South sea dream,
Wishing is an expedient to the poor;
Wishing, that conftant bectic 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 shed.
The world's a stately bark, on dang'rous feas
With pleafure feen, but boarded at our peril :
Here, on a fingle plank, thrown fafe a shore,
I hear the tumult of the diftant throng,
As that of feas remote, or dying storms:
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 inclofure, leap the mounds of right
Pursuing and purfu'd, each other's prey;
F

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