Starts timid Nature at the gloomy pass ?
The soft transition call it, and be cheer'd · 440
Surh it is often, and why not to thee?
To hope the best is pious, brave, and wise,
And

may itself procure what it presumes. Life is much flatter'd, Death is much traduced; Compare the rivals and the kinder crown. 445

Strange competition !'-True, Lorenzo! strange ! So little life can cast into the scale.

Life makes the soul dependent on the dust, Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres. Through chinks, styled organs, dim life, peeps at light; Death bursts the involving cloud, and all is day 451 All eye, all ear, the disembodied power. Death has feigr'd evils Nature shall not feel ; Life, ills substantial wisdom cannot shun. Is not the mighty mind, that sun of Heaven! 455 By tyrant Life dethroned, imprison'd, pain'd? By Death enlarged, ennobled, deified ? Death but entonıbs the body, Life the soul.

• Is Death then guiltless: How he marks his way With dreadful waste of what deserves to shine! 460 Art, Genius, Fortune, elevated power! With various lustres these light up the world, Which Death puts out, and darkens human race.' I grant, Lorenzo! this indictment just : The sage, peer, potentate, king, conqueror ! 465 Death humbles these ; more barbarous Life, the man Life is the triumph of our mouldering clay ; Death of the spirit infinite ! divine ! Death has no dread but what frail Life imparts, Nor Life true joy but what kind Death improves. 470 No bliss has Life to boast, till Death can give Far greater. Life's a debtor to the grave; Dark lattice ! letting in eternal day.

Lorenzo! blush at fondness for life Which sends celestial souls on errands vile, 475 To cater for the sense, and serve at boards

Where every ranger of the wilds, perhaps
Each reptile, justly claims our upper hand.
Luxurious feast! a soul, a soul immortal,
In all the dainties of a brute bemired'

480
Lorenzo. blush at terror for a death
Which gives thee to repose in festire bowers,
Where nectars sparkle, angels minister,
And more than angels share, and raiso, and crown,
And eternize, the birth, bloom, bursts of bliss. 485
What need I more ?- Death! the palın is thine.

Then welcome, Death! thy dreaded harbingers, Age and disease ; Disease, though long my guest, That plucks my nerves, those tender strings of life :

hich pluck'd a little more, will toll the bell 490 That calls my few friends to my funeral ; Where feeble nature drops, perhaps, a lear, While Reason and Religion, better taught, Congratulate the dead, and crown his toinb With wreath triumphant. Death is victory! 495 It binds in chains the raging ills of life : Lust and Ambition, Wrath and Avarice, Dragg'd at his chariot-whcel, applaud his power. That ills corrosive, cares importunate, Are not immortal too, O Death! is thine. 500 Our day of dissc!ution ?--name it right, 'Tis our great pay-day ; 'tis our harvest rich And ripe. What though the sickle, sometimes keen, Just scars us as we reap the golden grain ? More than thy balm, 0 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, 509 Life dies, compared ; Life lives beyond the grave.

And feel I, Death! no joy from thought of thee? Death! the great counsellor, who man inspires With every nob'er thought and fairer deed' Death! ihe 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 ;
Dca:h! of all pain the period, not of joy ;
Joy's source and subject still subsist u:hurt; 521)
One in my soul, and one in her great sire,
Though the four winds werc warring for my dust
Yes, and from winds and raves, and central niglit,
Though prison'd there, my dust, too, I reclaim,
(To dust when drop proud Nature's prou Jest spheres)
And live entire. Death is the crown of life! 526
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain :
Were death denied, to live would not be life :
Wore death denied, e'on fools would wish to die.
Deuth wounds to cure ; we fall, we rise, we reign! 530
Spring from our fetters, fasien 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 shai! I vie ? - when shall I livo for ever ?

NIGHT IV.

The Christian Triumph.

CONTAINING

PUR 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, Thino 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 arrived,
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; 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 fcels a thousand Jeaths in fearing one.

But were Death frightful, what has age to fear?
If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe,
And shelter in iis hospitable gloom.

20 | scarce can meet a monument, but holds

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My younger; every date cries_Come away.'
And what recals 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 :
Flawe 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 neart, though 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 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 purposed emendations where we faild,
Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge,
When, on their exit, souls are hid 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 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 so gracious (and let that suffice)
My very master knows me not..

Shall I dare say peculiar is my 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.

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