While reason and religion, better taught;
Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory ; 495
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 corrosive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O death! is thine.

500
Our day of dissolution !_name it right;
'Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harveit, rich
And ripe : what though the fickle, sometimes keen,
Just scars us as we reap the golden grain ?
More than thy balm, O Gilead ! heals the wound. 505
Birth's feeble cry, and death's deep dismal groan,
Are Nender tributes low-tax'd nature pays
For mighty gain : the gain of each, a life!
But O! the last the former fo tranfcends,
Life dies, compar'd; Life lives beyond the grave. 510

And feel I, death! no joy from thought of thee ? Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires With every nobler thought, and fairer deed ! Death, the deliverer, who rescues man ! Death, the rewarder, who the rescued crowns !

515 Death, that absolves my birth; a curse 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 source, and subject, ftill sublift unhurt;

520 One, in

my soul ; and one, in her great Sire; Though the four winds were warring for my duft.

Yes,

Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night,
Though prison’d there, my dust too I reclaim,
(Todust when drop proud nature’s proudest spheres) 525
And live intire. 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 rise, we reign! 530
Spring from our fetters ; faften in the skies ;
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight:
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost.
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?

535 „When shall I die „When thall I live for ever?

NIGHT

NIGHT THE FOURT H.

THE CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH.

CONTAINING

Our only Cure for the Fear of Death ; and proper Senti

ments of that inestimable Blessing.

Τ ο THE HONOURABLE MR. YORKE.

A

Much-indebted Muse, o Yorke! intrudes.

Amid the smiles of fortune, and of youth, Thine ear is patient of a serious song, How deep implanted in the breast of man The dread of death! I sing its sovereign cure. 5

Why start at death? Where is he? Death arriv'd, Is past ; not come or gone, he's never here. Ere bope, sensation fails ; black-boding man Receives, not suffers, death's tremendous blow. The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave ; 10 The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm; These 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 ; 15 Then on the point of his own fancy falls; And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.

But

20

30

But were death frightful, what has age to fear?
If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe,
And shelter in his hospitable gloom.
I scarce can meet a monument, but holds
My younger ; every date cries—"Come away.”
And what recalls me ? Look the world around,
And tell me what : the wiseft cannot tell.
Should

any

born of women give his thought 25 Full range, on just dislike's unbounded field;. Of things, the vanity; of men, the flaws ; Flaws in the best; the many, flaw all o’er; As leopards, spotted, or, as Ethiops, dark; Vivacious ill ; good dying immature ; (How immature, Narcissa's marble tells !) And at his death bequeathing endless pain ; His heart, though bold, would ficken at the fight, And spend itself in sighs, for furure scenes.

But grant to life (and just it is to grant 35 To lucky life) fome perquisites of joy ; A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale, Long-rifled life of sweet can yield no more, But from our comment on the comedy, Pleasing reflections on parts well sustain'd, Or purposs’d emendations where we fail'd, Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge, When on their exit, souls are bid unrobe, Toss fortune back her tinsel, 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 rises, and new manners reign :

Foreign

40

45

5o

Foreign comedians, a spruce band ! arrive,
To push me from the scene, or hiss me there,
What a pert race starts up! the strangers 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 master knows.me not.-

55
Shall I dare say, peculiar is the fate?
I've been so long remember'd, I'm forgot.
An object ever presling dims the fight,
And hides behind its ardour to be seen.
When in his courtiers ears I, pour my plaint,

-60
They drink it as the nectar of the great ;
And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow.
Refusal ! canst thou wear a smoother form?

Indulge me, 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. besiege ;
Ambition's ill-judg'd effort to be rich.
Alas! amition makes my little less;
Embittering the pofleft: Why wish for more ?

70 Wishing, of all employments, is the worst; Philofophy's reverse ; and health's decay ! Were I as plump as stall'd theology, Wishing would waste me to this shade again. sWere I as wealthy as a South-sea dream,

- 75 Wishing is an expedient to be poor. ...Wishing, that constant hetic of a fool ;

Caught

65