Nor can my guilty foul expect relief,
But from a long fincerity of grief.
With an imperfect hand, and trembling heart,
Her love of truth fuperior to her art,
Already the reflecting Mufe has trac'd
The mournful figures of my actions paft.
The penfive Goddefs has already taught,
How vain is Hope, and how vexatious Thought;
From growing childhood to declining age,
How tedious every step, how gloomy every stage.
This course of vanity almoft compleat,
Tir'd in the field of Life, I hope retreat
In the ftill fhades of Death: for dread and pain,
And griefs, will find their fhafts clanc'd in vain,
And their points broke, retorted from the head,
Safe in the grave, and free among the dead.
Yet tell me, frighted Reafon! what is Death?
Blood only ftopp'd, and interrupted breath;
The utmoft limit of a narrow fpan,
And end of motion which with Life began.
As smoke that rifes from the kindling fires
Is feen this moment, and the next expires;
As empty clouds by rifing winds are toft,
Their fleeting forms scarce fooner found than loft; 525
So vanishes our state, so pafs our days;
So Life but opens now, and now decays:
The cradle and the tomb, alas! fo nigh;
To live, is fcarce diftinguish'd from to die.
Cure of the Mifer's with, and Coward's fear,
Death only fhews us, what we knew was near.
With courage therefore view the pointed hour;
Dread not Death's anger; but expect his power;
Nor Nature's law with fruitlefs forrow mourn;
But die, O mortal man! for thou waft born.
Cautious through doubt, by want of courage wife,
To fuch advice the Reafoner ftill replies.
Yet measuring all the long-continued space,
Every fucceffive day's repeated race,
Since Time first started from his priftine goal,
Till he had reach'd that hour wherein my
Join'd to my body fwell'd the womb; I was,
(At least I think fo) nothing: must I pafs
Again to nothing, when this vital breath,
Ceafing, configns me o'er to reft and death?
Muft the whole man, amazing thought! return
To the cold marble, or contracted urn?
And never fhall thofe particles agree,
That were in life this individual He?
But, fever'd, muft they join the general mafs,
Through other forms and fhapes ordain❜d to pass;
Nor thought nor image kept of what he was?
Does the great word, that gave him sense, ordain,
That life fhall never wake that sense again?
And will no power his finking fpirits fave
From the dark caves of death, and chambers of the grave?
Each evening I behold the setting fun
With downward fpeed into the ocean run:
Yet the fame light (pafs but fome fleeting hours)
Exerts his vigour, and renews his powers;
Starts the bright race again: his constant flame
Rises and sets, returning ftill the fame.
I mark the various fury of the winds;
These neither feasons guide, nor order binds;
They now dilate, and now contract their force;
Various their speed, but endlefs is their course.
From his first fountain and beginning ouze,
Down to the fea each brook and torrent flows:
Though fundry drops or leave or fwell the stream;
The whole still runs, with equal pace, the fame;
Still other waves fupply the rifing urns;
And the eternal flood no want of water mourns.
Why then muft Man obey the fad decree,
Which fubjects neither fun, nor wind, nor fea?
A flower, that does with opening morn arise,
And, flourishing the day, at evening dies
A winged Eastern blaft, just skimming o'er
The ocean's brow, and finking on the shore;
A fire, whofe flames through crackling stubble fly;
A meteor shooting from the fummer fky;
A bowl adown the bending mountain roll'd;
A bubble breaking, and a fable told;
A noon-tide fhadow, and a midnight dream ;
Are emblems, which with femblance apt proclaim
Our earthly course: but, O my foul! so fast
Muft Life run off, and Death for ever laft?
This dark opinion, fure, is too confin'd:
Elfe whence this hope, and terror of the mind?
Does fomething ftill, and fomewhere yet remain,
Reward or punishment, delight or pain?
Say fhall our relicks fecond birth receive?
Sleep we to wake, and only die to live?
When the fad wife has clos'd her husband's eyes,
And pierc'd the echoing vault with doleful cries;
Lies the pale corpfe not yet entirely dead,
The spirit only from the body fled;
The groffer part of heat and motion void,
To be by fire, or worm, or time, destroy'd;
The foul, immortal fubftance, to remain,
Conscious of joy, and capable of pain?
And, if her acts have been directed well,
While with her friendly clay the deign'd to dwell,
Shall the with fafety reach her pristine seat ?
Find her reft endlefs, and her blifs compleat?
And, while the bury'd Man we idly mourn,
Do Angels joy to fee his better half return?
But, if she has deform'd this earthly life
With murderous rapine, and feditious strife;
Amaz'd, repuls'd, and by thofe Angels driven
From the æthereal feat and blissful Heaven,
In everlasting darkness must she lie,
Still more unhappy, that the cannot die?
Amid two feas, on one fmall point of land,
Weary'd, uncertain, and amaz'd, we stand;
On either fide our thoughts inceffant turn;
Forward we dread; and looking back we mourn;
Lofing the prefent in this dubious hafte,
And loft ourselves betwixt the future and the paft.
Thefe cruel doubts contending in my breast,
My reafon staggering, and my hopes opprefs'd,
Once more, I faid, once more I will enquire,
What is this little, agile, pervious fire,
This fluttering motion, which we call the Mind?
How does the act? and where is the confin'd ?
Have we the power to guide her as we please?
Whence then those evils, that obftruct our ease?
We happiness purfue; we fly from pain;
Yet the pursuit, and yet the flight, is vain:
And, while poor Nature labours to be bleft,
By day with pleasure, and by night with reft;
Some stronger power eludes our fickly will,
Dashing our rifing hope with certain ill;
And makes us with reflective trouble fee,
That all is destin'd, which we fancy free.
That Power fuperior then, which rules our mind,
Is his decree by human prayer inclin'd?
Will he for facrifice our forrows ease?
And can our tears reverse his firm decrees?
Then let Religion aid, where Reafon fails;
Throw loads of incenfe in, to turn the fcales;
And let the filent fanctuary fhow,
What from the babbling schools we may not know,
How Man may fhun or bear his deftin'd part of woe.
What shall amend, or what abfolve, our fate?
Anxious we hover in a mediate fate,
Betwixt infinity and nothing; bounds,
Or boundless terms, whofe doubtful fenfe confounds.
Unequal thought! whilft all we apprehend
Is, that our hopes must rife, our forrrows end;
As our Creator deigns to be our friend.
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