A truth it is, few doubt, but fewer trust,
"He fins against this life, who flights the next."
What is this life? how few their fav'rite know?
Fond in the dark, and blind in our embrace,
By paffionately loving life, we make
Lov'd life unlovely; hugging her to death.
We give to time eternity's regard;
And, dreaming, take our paffage from our port.
Life has no value as an end, but means;
An end deplorable ! a means divine!
When 'tis our all, 'tis nothing; worse than nought;
A neft of pains; when held as nothing, much;
Like fome fair hum'rifts, life is most enjoy'd,
When courted leaft; moft worth, when difesteem'd;
Then 'tis the feat of comfort, rich in peace;
In profpect, richer far; important! awful!
Not to be mention'd but with fhouts of praise!
Not to be thought on, but with tides of joy!
The mighty bafis of eternal blifs!
Where now the barren rock? the painted fhrew ?
Where now, Lorenzo! life's eternal round?
Have I not made my triple promife good?
Vain is the world; but only to the vain.
To what compare we then this varying scene,
Whose worth ambiguous rifes, and declines?
Waxes and wanes? (in all propitious, night.
Aflifts me here) compare it to the moon;
Dark in herself, and indigent; but rich
In borrow'd luftre from a higher fphere:
When grofs guilt interpofes, lab'ring earth,
O'ershadow'd, mourns a deep eclipse of joy ;
Her joys, at brightest, pallid, to that font
Of full effulgent glory, whence they flow.
Nor is that glory diftant: 0 Lorenzo!
A good man, and an angel! thefe between
How thin the barrier? what divides their fate?
Perhaps a moment; or perhaps a year;
Or, if an age, it is a moment ftill;
A moment, or eternity's forgot.
Then be, what once they were, who now are gods;
Be what Philander was, and claim the skies.
Starts timid nature at the gloomy pass?
The soft tranfition call it; and be chear'd:
Such it is often, and why not to thee?
To hope the best is pious, brave, and wife,
And may itself procure, what it prefumes.
Life is much flatter'd, death is much traduc'd;
Compare the rivals, and the kinder crown.
"Strange competition !"-True, Lorenzo! ftrange!
So little life can caft into the scale.
Life makes the foul dependent on the duft;
Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres.
Thro' chinks, ftil'd organs, dim life peeps at light;
Death burfts th' involving cloud, and all is day;
All eye, all ear, the difembody'd power.
Death has feign'd evils, nature fhall not feel;
Life, ills fubftantial, wisdom cannot fhun.
Is not the mighty mind, that son of heaven!
By tyrant life dethron'd, imprifon'd, pain'd?
By death enlarg'd, ennobl'd, deify'd?
Death but entombs the body; life the soul.
"Is death then guiltlefs? how he marks his way
"With dreadful waste of what deferves to fhine!
"Art, genius, fortune, elevated power!
"With various luftres these light up the world,
"Which death puts out, and darkens human race.”
I grant, Lorenzo! this indictment just :
The fage, peer, potentate, king, conqueror!
Death humbles these; more barb'rous life, the man.
Life is the triumph of our mould'ring clay;
Death, of the fpirit infinite! divine!
Death has no dread, but what frail life imparts;
Nor life true joy, but what kind death improves.
No blifs 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 a life,
Which fends celestial fouls on errands vile,
To cater for the sense; and serve at boards,
Where ev'ry ranger of the wilds, perhaps
Each reptile, justly claims our upper hand.
Luxurious feast! a foul, a foul immortal,
In all the dainties of a brute bemir'd!
Lorenzo! blush at terror for a death,
Which gives thee to repose in festive bowers,
Where nectars fparkle, angels minister,
And more than angels share, and raise, and crown,
And eternize the birth, bloom, bursts of bliss.
What need I more? O death, the palm is thine.
Then welcome, death; thy dreaded harbingers, Age, and difeafe; disease, tho' long my guest; That plucks my nerves, those tender strings of life; Which, pluckt a little more, will toll the bell, That calls my few friends to my funeral; Where feeble nature drops, perhaps, a tear, While reafon 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: Luft and ambition, wrath and avarice, Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power. That ills corrofive, cares importunate, Are not immortal too, O death! is thine. Our day of diffolution!-name it right;
'Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich
And ripe: what tho' the fickle, fometimes keen,
Juft fcars us, as we reap the golden grain?
More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound.
Birth's feeble cry, and death's deep dismal groan,
Are flender tributes low-taxt nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each, a life!
But O! the last the former so tranfcends,
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 refcues man!
Death, the rewarder, who the rescu'd crowns!
Death, that abfolves 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 fource, and fubject, ftill fubfift unhurt;
One, in foul; and one, in her my
great ;
Tho' the four winds were warring for my duft.
Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night,
Tho' prifon'd there, my duft too I reclaim,
(To duft when drop proud nature's proudest spheres.)
And live entire. Death is the crown of life;
Was death deny'd, poor man would live in vain ;
Was death deny'd, to live would not be life :
Was death deny'd, ev'n fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure; we fall; we rise; we reign!
Spring from our fetters; faften in the fkies;
Where blooming Eden withers in our fight :
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost.
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When fhall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When shall I die?when shall I live for ever?
Our only CURE for the FEAR of DEATH.
And proper SENTIMENTS OF HEART on that inestimable Blessing.
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