Where feeble Nature drops, perhaps a tear,
While Reason and Religion, better taught,
Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory;
It binds in chains the raging ills of life:
Lust and Ambition, Wrath and Avarice,
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his pow'r.
That ills corrosive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O Death! is thine,
Our day of dissolution !---name it right,
'Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich
And ripe. What tho' the sickle, 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 slender tributes low-tax'd Nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each a life!
But O! the last the former so transcends,
Life dies compar'd; Life lives beyond the grave.
And feel I, Death! no joy from thought of thee?
Death! the great counsellor, who man inspires
With ev'ry nobler thought and fairer deed!
Death! the deliverer who rescues man!
Death! the rewarder, who the rescu'd crowns!
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 still subsist unhurt; 520 One in my soul, and one in her great sire,
Tho' the four winds were warring for my dust.
Yes, and from winds and waves, and central night,
Tho' prison'd there, my dust, too, I reclaim.
(To dust when drop proud nature's proudest spheres)
And live entire. Death is the crown of life: 526
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!
Spring from our fetters, fasten in the skies,
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight.
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost:
This king of terrours is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When shall I die?---when shall I live for ever? 536
OUR ONLY CURE FOR THE FEAR OF DEATH, AND PROPER SENTIMENTS OF HEART ON THAT INESTIMABLE BLESSING.
TO THE HON. 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 sov'reign cure.
Why start at death? where is he? Death arriv'd,
Is past; not come, or gone; he's never here.
Ere hope, sensation fails. Black-boding man'
Receives, not suffers, Death's tremendous blow.
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave;
The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm;
These are the bugbears of a winter's eve,
The terrours of the living, not the dead;
Imagination's fool, and Errour's wretch.
Volume I.
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 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; ev'ry date cries---" Come away."
And what recalls me? look the world around,
And tell me what. The wisest cannot tell.
Should any born of woman give his thought
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 leopard spotted, 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 sicken at the sight,
And spend itself in sighs for future scenes.
But grant to life (and just it is to grant
To lucky life) some perquisites ofjoy;
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 purpos'd emendations where we fail'd,
Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge,
When, on their exit, souls are bid unrobe,
Toss Fortun: 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 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 loit'ring here, of death defrauded long.
Of old so gracious (and let that suffice)
My very master knows me not.
Shall I dare say peculiar is the fate?
I've been so long remember'd I'm forgot.
An object ever pressing dims the sight,
And hides behind its ardour to be seen.
When in his courtiers ears I pour my plaint,
They drink it as the nectar of the great,
And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow. Refusal! cans't 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! ambition makes my little less,
Imbitt'ring the possess'd. Why wish for more?
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