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PREFACE.

AS the occafion of this Poem was real, not fidi

tious; fo the method pursued in it, was rather

impofed, by what fpontaneously arofe in the author's mind on that occafion, than meditated or defigned. Which will appear very probable from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of Poetry, which is, from long narrations to draw fhort morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is fhort, and the morality arifing from it makes the bulk of the Poem. The reason of it is, That the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the writer.

THE

COMPLAINT.

NIGHT THE FIRST.

ON

LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

то

THE RIGHT HON. ARTHUR ONSLOW,

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

IR'D Nature's fweet reftorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays

Where Fortune fmiles; the wretched he forfakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose,

I wake: How happy they, who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infeft the grave.

I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams

5

Tumultuous; where my wreck'd defponding thought, 10 From wave to wave of fancied misery,

At random drove, her helm of reason loft.
Though now reftor'd, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) feverer for severe.

The Day too fhort for my diftrefs; and Night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,

Is funshine to the colour of

my fate.

Night, fable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden fceptre o'er a flumbering world. Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds; Creation fleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse Of life ftood still, and nature made a pause; An awful paufe! prophetic of her end. And let her prophecy be foon fulfill'd; Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more. Silence and Darkness! folemn fifters! twins From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought! To Reason, and on Reason build Refolve, (That column of true majesty in man)

Affift me: I will thank you in the grave;

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The grave, your kingdom: There this frame shall fall A victim facred to your dreary fhrine.

But what are ye?—

Thou, who didft put to flight

Primæval Silence, when the morning stars,

Exulting, fhouted o'er the rifing ball;

35

O Thou, whofe word from folid darkness struck
That fpark, the fun; ftrike wisdom from my foul; 40

My

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