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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 superior to her art)
Already the reflecting Mufe has trac'd
The mournful figures of my actions paft.
The penfive goddess has already taught
How vain is hope, and how vexatious thought;
From growing childhood to declining age,
How tedious ev'ry ftep, how gloomy ev'ry stage.
This course of vanity almost compleat,

Tir'd in the field of life, I hope retreat
In the still fhades of death; for dread, and pain,
And grief, will find their fhafts elanc'd in vain
And their points broke, retorted from the head,
Safe in the grave, and free among the dead.

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Yet tell me, frighted Reason, what is death? • Blood only stopp'd, and interrupted breath? The utmoft limit of a narrow span,

And end of motion, which with life began?
As fmoke that rifes from the kindling fires
Is feen this moment, and the next expires;
As empty clouds by rifing winds are tofs'd,
• Their fleeting forms fcarce fooner found than loft:
So vanishes our state, so pafs our days,
So life but opens now, and now decays;
The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh,
• To live is fcarce distinguish'd from to die.'

Cure of the miser's wish, 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 pow'r ; • Nor Nature's law with fruitless forrow mourn,

But die, O mortal man! for thou wast born.' Cautious thro' doubt, by want of courage wife, To fuch advice the reas'ner ftill replies.

• Yet

Yet measuring all the long continu'd space, • Ev'ry fucceffive day's repeated race,

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Since Time first started from his pristine goal,
Till he had reach'd that hour wherein my foul,
Join'd to my body, fwell'd the womb, I was
(At least I think fo) nothing: muft I pafs

Again to nothing, when this vital breath,

Ceafing, configns me o'er to rest and death?

• Muft the whole man, amazing thought! return To the cold marble, or contracted urn?

• And never shall thofe particles agree,

That were in life this individual he?

But fever'd, muft they join the general mafs, Thro' other forms and shapes 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 pow'r his finking spirits fave

• From the dark caves of death, and chambers of the
Each ev'ning 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 pow'rs;
Starts the bright race again: his conftant flame
• Rises and fets, returning ftill the fame.
I mark the various fury of the winds;
These neither seasons guide, nor order binds:
• They now dilate, and now contract their force;
• Various their speed, but endless is their course.
From his first fountain and beginning ouze,
Down to the sea each brook and torrent flows;
Tho' fundry drops or leave or fwell the ftream,

• 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.

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grave?

Why

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Why then must man obey the fad decree,
Which fubjects neither fun, nor wind, nor sea?
A flower, that does with op'ning morn arise,
And, flourishing the day, at evening dies;
A winged eastern blast, just skimming o'er
The ocean's brow, and finking on the fhore;
A fire, whofe flames thro' crackling ftubble fly;
A meteor shooting from the summer sky;
A bowl a-down the bending mountain roll'd;
A bubble breaking, and a fable told;

A noon-tide shadow, and a midnight dream;
Are emblems which, with femblance apt, proclaim
Our earthly courfe: but, O my foul! fo faft
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 somewhere, yet remain,
• Reward or punishment, delight or pain?

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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 corfe 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 substance, to remain
• Conscious of joy, and capable of pain?

And if her acts have been directed well,

? While with her friendly clay fhe deign'd to dwell,
Shall the with fafety reach her priftine feat,
Find her reft endless, and her bliss compleat?
And while the buried man we idly mourn,
Do angels joy to fee his better half return?
But if she has deform'd this earthly life
With murd'rous rapine and feditious ftrife,

· Amaz'd,

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Amaz'd, repuls'd, and by thofe angels driv'n
From the ethereal feat and blissful heav'n,
In everlasting darknefs muft fhe lie,

Still more unhappy that the cannot die?

Amid two feas, on one fmall point of land, Weary'd, uncertain, and amaz'd, we ftand; • 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 past.’
These cruel doubts contending in my breaft,
My reafon staggering, and my hopes opprefs'd,
• Once more,' I said, once more I will inquire
• What is this little, agile, pervious fire;

This flutt'ring motion which we call the Mind,
How does the act? and where is the confin'd?
Have we the pow'r to guide her as we please?
Whence then those evils that obftruct our ease?
We happiness purfue; we fly from pain;
Yet the purfuit, and yet the flight is vain ;
And while poor Nature labours to be blefs'd,
By day with pleafure, and by night with reft,
Some ftronger pow'r eludes our fickly will,
Dashing our rifing hope with certain ill;
And makes us with reflective trouble fee,
That all is deftin'd, which we fancy free.

That Pow'r fuperior, then, which rules our mind,
Is his decree by human pray'r inclin'd?

Will he for facrifice our forrows ease?

And can our tears reverfe his firm decrees?

Then let religion aid where reafon fails,

Throw loads of incense in to turn the fcales;

And let the filent fanctuary show

What from the babbling schools we may not know,

• How man may fhun, or bear, his deftin'd part

of woe.

What

• What shall amend, or what abfolve our fate? Anxious we hover in a mediate state,

Betwixt infinity and nothing; bounds,

• Or boundless terms, whofe doubtful fenfe confounds:
• Unequal thought! whilst all we apprehend
Is, that our hopes must rife, our forrows end,
As our Creator deigns to be our friend.'
I said: and instant bade the priests prepare
The ritual facrifice, and folemn pray'r.
Select from vulgar herds, with garlands gay,
A hundred bulls ascend the facred way:
The artful youth proceed to form the choir,
They breathe the flute, or ftrike the vocal wire.
The maids in comely order next advance,
They beat the timbrel, and inftruct the dance:
Follows the chofen tribe, from Levi fprung,
Chaunting by juft return the holy fong.
Along the choir in folemn ftate they pafs'd,
The anxious king came laft.

The facred hymn perform'd, my promis'd vow
I paid; and, bowing at the altar low,

'Father of heav'n!' I said, and Judge of earth!
Whofe word call'd out this univerfe to birth;

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By whofe kind pow'r, and influencing care,

The various creatures move, and live, and are ; 'But ceafing once that care, withdrawn that pow'r, They move (alas !) and live, and are no more : • Omnifcient Mafter, omni-prefent King, To thee, to thee, my last distress I bring.

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Thou that canft ftill the raging of the feas,

Chain up the winds, and bid the tempefts ceafe, • Redeem my shipwreck'd foul from raging gufts Of cruel paffion and deceitful lufts;

• From storms of rage, and dang’rous rocks of pride, Let thy ftrong hand this little veffel guide

' (It was thy hand that made it!) thro' the tide

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• Impetuous

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