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In the remoteft wood and lonely grott
Certain to meet the worst of evils, thoughts
Diff'rent Ideas to his mem'ry brought:
Some intricate, as are the pathless woods;
Impetuous fome, as the defcending floods :
With anxious doubts, with raging paffions torn,
No fweet companion near with whom to mourn;
He hears the echoing rock return his fighs;
And from himself the frighted hermit flies.

Thus, thro' what path foe'er of life we rove,
Rage companies our hate, and grief our love :
Vex'd with the prefent moment's heavy gloom,
Why feek we brightnefs from the years to come?
Disturb'd and broken like a fick man's fleep,
Our troubled thoughts to diftant profpects leap:
Defirous fill what flies us to o'ertake:
For hope is but the dream of those that wake:
But, looking back, we fee the dreadful train
Of woes, a-new which were we to sustain,
We fhould refufe to tread the path again.
Still adding grief, ftill counting from the firft;
Judging the latest evils fill the worft;

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And fadly finding each progreffive hour Heighten their number, and augment their pow'r : 'Till by one countless fum of woes opprest,

Hoary with eares, and ignorant of reft,

We find the vital fprings relax'd and worn: Compell'd our common impotence to mourn, Thus, through the round of age to childhood we

return:

Reflecting find, that naked from the womb

We yelerday came forth; that in the tomb

Naked again we must to-morrow lie,

Born to lament, to labour, and to die.

Pafs we the ills, which each man feels or dreads,
The weight or fall'n, or hanging o'er our heads;
The bear, the lion, terrors of the plain,
The sheepfold fcatter'd, and the fhepherd flain;
The frequent errors of the pathlefs wood,
The giddy precipice, and the dang❜rous flood;
The noifom peft'lence, that in open war
Terrible, marches through the mid-day air,
And scatters death; the arrow that by night
Cuts the dank mift, and fatal wings the flight ;.
The billowing fnow, and violence of the show'r,
That from the hills disperse their dreadful store,
And o'er the vales collected ruin pour;

The worm that gnaws the ripening fruit, fad guest,
Canker or locust hurtful to infeft

The blade; while husks elude the tiller's care,
And eminence of want diftinguishes the year.
Pafs we the flow difeafe, and fubtle pain,
Which our weak frame is deftin'd to fuftain;
The cruel ftone with congregated war
Tearing his bloody way; the cold catarrb,
With frequent impulfe, and continu'd strife,
Weak'ning the wafted feats of irkfom life;
The gout's fierce rack, the burning fever's rage,
The fad experience of decay; and age,
Herself the foreft ill; while death, and ease,
Oft and in vain invok'd, or to appease,
Or end the grief, with hafty wings reeede
From the vex'd patient, and the fickly bed.

Nought fhall it profit, that the charming fair;.
Angelic, fofteft work of heav'n, draws near
To the cold shaking paralytic hand,

Senfeless of beauty's touch, or love's command;
Nor longer apt, or able to fulfill

The dictates of its feeble master's will.

Nought fhall the pfaltry, and the harp avail, The pleafing fong, or well-repeated tale; When the quick spirits their warm march forbear; And numbing coldness has unbrac'd the ear.

The verdant rifing of the flow'ry hill,

The vale enamell'd, and the crystal rill,
The ocean rolling, and the fhelly shore,
Beautiful objects, shall delight no more;
When the lax'd finews of the weaken'd eye-
In wat'ry damps, or dim fuffufion lie.
Day follows night; the clouds return again
After the falling of the latter rain;
But to the aged blind shall ne'er return
Grateful viciffitude: he ftill must mourn
The fun, and moon, and ev'ry starry light
Eclips'd to him, and loft in everlasting night.

Behold where age's wretched victim lies:
See his head trembling, and his half-clos'd eyes:
Frequent for breath his panting bofom heaves:
To broken fleep his remnant sense he gives;
And only by his pains, awaking finds he lives.
Loos'd by devouring time the filver cord
Diffever'd lies: unhonour'd from the board
The crystal urn, when broken, is thrown by;
And apter utenfils their place fupply.

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These things and thou must fhare an equal lot;
Die, and be loft, corrupt and be forgot;

While ftill another, and another race:

Shall now fupply, and now give up the place.
From earth all came, to earth must all return;
Frail as the cord and brittle as the urn.

But be the terror of thefe ills fupprefs'd:
And view we man with health and vigour blefs'd.
Home he returns with the declining fun,
His deftin'd tafk of labour hardly done;
Goes forth again with the afcending ray,
Again his travel for his bread to pay,
And find the ill fufficient to the day.
Hap'ly at night he does with horror fhun
A widow'd daughter, or a dying son :
His neighbour's offspring he to-morrow fees:
And doubly feels his want in their increase:
The next day, and the next he must attend
His foe triumphant, or his buried friend.
In ev'ry act and turn of life he feels
Public calamities, or houthold ills:
The due reward to just defert refus'd:
The truft betray'd, the nuptial bed abus'd:
The judge corrupt, the long depending cause,
And doubtful iffue of mifconftru'd laws.
The crafty turns of a dishonest state,

And violent will of the wrong-doing great:
The venom'd tongue injurious to his fame,

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Which nor can wisdom fhun, nor fair advance reclaim. Esteem we thefe, my friends, event and chance, Produc'd as atoms form their flutt'ring dance?

Or higher yet their effence may we draw
From deftin'd order, and eternal law?
Again, my mufe, the cruel doubt repeat:
Spring they, I fay, from accident, or fate?
Yet fuch, we find, they are, as can controul
The fervile actions of our wav'ring foul;
Can fright, can alter, or can chain the will;
Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.
O fatal fearch! in which the lab'ring mind,
Still prefs'd with weight of woe, ftill hopes to find‹
A fhadow of delight, a dream of peace,

From years of pain, one moment of release ;
Hoping at least she may herself deceive,
Against experience willing to believe,
Defirous to rejoice, condemn'd to grieve.
Happy the mortal man, who now at laft
Has through this doleful vale of mis'ry paft
Who to his deftin'd age has carry'd on
The tedious load, and laid his burden down ;
Whom the cut brafs, or wounded marble fhows-
Victor o'er life, and all her train of woes.
He happier yet, who priviledg'd by fate
To fhorter labour, and a lighter weight,
Receiv'd but yesterday the gift of breath,
Order'd to-morrow to return to death.
But O beyond defcription happieft he,
Who ne'er muft roll on life's tumultuous fea;
Who with bleft freedom from the gen'ral doom
Exempt, muft never force the teeming womb,
Nor fee the fun, nor fink into the tomb.

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Who breathes, muft fuffer; and who thinks muft And he alone was bleft, who ne'er was born. [mourn;

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