To worth maturing, new Strength, Luftre, Fame,
While Nature's Circle, like a Chariot-wheel,
Rolling beneath their elevated Aims,
Makes their fair Profpect fairer ev'ry Hour;
Advancing Virtue, in a Line to Blifs:
Virtue, which Chriftian Motives best inspire!
And Bliss, which Chriftian Schemes alone enfure.
And shall we then, for Virtue's fake, commence-
Apoftates? and turn Infidels for Joy?

A Truth it is, Few doubt, but Fewer truft,

"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 for 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 Humourifts, Life is most enjoy'd,
When courted leaft; moft worth, when difefteem'd;
Then 'tis the Seat of Comfort, rich in Peace;
In Profpect, richer far; Important! Awful!
Not to be mention'd but with Shouts 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 Shree?
Where now, Lorenzo !· Life's eternal Round?
Have I not made my triple Promise 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
C 3

Affifts me Here) Compare it to the Moon;
Dark in herself, and Indigent: but Rich
In borrow'd Luftre from a higher Sphere:
When grofs Guilt interpofes, labouring Earth
O'erfhadow'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: Oh Lorenzo!
A good Man and an Angel! These 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 foft Tranfition call it; and be chear'd;
Such it is often, and why not to Thee?
To hope the Beft 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! Strange!
So little Life can caft into the Scale.

Life makes the Soul Dependent on the Duft;
Death gives her wings to mount above the Spheres:
Thro' Chinks, ftyl'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 shall not feel;
Life, Ills fubftantial, Wisdom cannot shun :
Is not the mighty Mind, that Son of Heav'n!
By Tyrant Life dethron'd, imprison'd, pain’d?
By Death enlarg'd, ennobled, deify'd?
Death but entombs the Body? Life the Soul.

"Is Death then Guiltless? How He marks his Way "With dreadful Waste of what deferves to fhine? "Art, Genius, Fortune, elevated Pow'r ! "With various Luftres Thefe light up the World, "Which Death puts out and darkens human Race." I grant, Lorenzo! this Indictment juft:

The Sage, Peer, Potentate, King, Conqueror !
Death humbles Thefe; more barbarous Life, the man:
Life is the Triumph of our mould'ring 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.
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 celeftial Souls on errands vile,
To cater for the Senfe; and ferve at Boards,
Where ev'ry Ranger of the Wilds, perhaps,
Each Reptile juftly claims our upper Hand;
Luxurious Feaft! a Soul, à Soul immortal,
In all the Dainties of a Brute bemir'd!
Lorenzo! blufh at Terror for a Death,
Which gives thee to repose in festive Bow'rs,
Where Nectars fparkle, Angels minister,

And more than Angels share, and raise, and crown,
And eternize, the Birth, Bloom, Burfts of Blife!
O Feaft indeed Luxurious! Earth, vile Earth!
In all the Glories of a God array'd;

And beaming inextinguishable Bliss,

What need I more? O Death, the Palm is thine.
Then welcome, Death! thy dreaded Harbingers
Age, and Difeafe; Disease, tho' long my Gueft;
That plucks my Nerves, those tender Strings of Life,
Which pluck'd a little more, will toll the Bell

C 4

That

That calls my few Friends to my Funeral;
Where feeble Nature drops, perhaps, a Tear,
While Reason and Religion, better taaght,
Congratulate the Dead, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is Victory s
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 Sickle, 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 difmal Groan,
Are flender Tributes low-tax'd Nature pays,
For mighty Gain: The Gain of each, a Life!
But O, the Laft 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 rescued crowns !
Death, that abfolves my Birth, a curfe 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 fubfift unhurt,
One in my Soul; and One, in her great Sire,
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 proude Spheres)

And

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 rife; we reign!
Spring from our Fetters; faften in the Skies;
Where blooming Eden withers in our Sight;

Death gives us more than was in Eden loft.-
This King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace.
When fhall I die to Vanity, Pain, Death ??
When fhall I die?-When fhall I live for ever?