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PREFACE.

As the occasion of this poem was real, not fictitious; so the method pursued in it, was rather imposed, by what spontaneously arose in the author's mind on that occasion than meditated or designed. 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 short morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is short, and the morality arising 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.

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Yet Man. fool Man, here buries all his thoughts; 5.

London: Pub Jan! L1802. by Vernor & Hood, and the other Proprietors.

THE

COMPLAINT.

NIGHT THE FIRST:

ON

LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE ARTHUR ONSLOW, ES2.

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

TIR'D Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsully'd 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 infest the
grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams

Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought,
From wave to wave of fancy'd misery,
At random drove, her helm of reason lost.
Tho' now restor'd, 'tis only change of pain,

(A bitter change!) severer for severe.

The Day too short for

my distress; and Night,

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