And scatters death; the arrow that by night
Cuts the dank mist, and fatal wings its flight;
The billowing fnow, and violence of the shower,
That from the hills difperfe their dreadful store, 130
And o'er the vales collected ruin pour;

The worm that gnaws the ripening fruit, fad guest;
Canker or locuft, hurtful to infest

The blade; while husks elude the tiller's care,
And eminence of want diftinguishes the year.
Pass we the flow disease, and fubtle pain,
Which our weak frame is deftin'd to sustain ;
The cruel ftone with congregated war
Tearing his bloody way; the cold catarrh,
With frequent impulfe, and continued ftrife,
Weakening the wafted feats of irksome life;
The gout's fierce rack, the burning fever's rage,
The fad experience of decay; and Age,

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Herfelf the foreft ill; while Death and Eafe,
Oft' and in vain invok'd, or to appease

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Or end the grief, with hafty wings recede
From the vext patient and the fickly bed.

Nought fhall it profit, that the charming fair,

Angelic, fofteft work of Heaven, draws near

To the cold fhaking paralytic hand,

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Senfelefs of Beauty's touch, or Love's command;

Nor longer apt or able to fulfil

The dictates of its feeble Master's will.

Nought fhall the pfaltry and the harp avail, The pleafing fong, or well-repeated tale;

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When

When the quick spirits their warm march forbear,
And numbing coldness has unbrac'd the ear.

The verdant rifing of the flowery hill,
The vale enamel'd, and the crystal rill,
The ocean rolling, and the fhelly shore,
Beautiful objects, fhall delight no more;
When the lax'd finews of the weaken'd eye
In watery damps or dim fuffusion lie.

Day follows night; the clouds return again.
After the falling of the latter rain :

But to the aged-blind fhall ne'er return
Grateful viciffitude: he ftill muft mourn
The fun, and moon, and every 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 fenfe 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.
These things and thou must share one 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.

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But

But be the terror of thefe ills fupprefs'd;

And view we Man with health and vigour bleft.
Home he returns with the declining fun,
His deftin'd task of labour hardly done ;
Goes forth again with the ascending ray,
Again his travel for his bread to pay,
And find the ill fufficient to the day.
Haply at night he does with horror fhun
A widow'd daughter, or a dying fon :
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 every act and turn of life he feels
Public calamities, or household ills;
The due reward to just desert refus'd;
The truft betray'd, the nuptial bed abus'd;
The judge corrupt, the long-depending cause,
And doubtful issue of misconstrued laws;
The crafty turns of a dishonest state,

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190}

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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 advice reclaim.
Efteem we these, my friends, event and chance,
Produc'd as atoms from their fluttering dance?
Or higher yet their effence may we draw

From deftin'd order and eternal law?
Again, my Muse, the cruel doubt repeat:
Spring they, I fay, from accident, or fate?

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Yet

Yet fuch we find they are as can control
The fervile actions of our wavering 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 labouring mind,
Still prefs'd with weight of woe, still hopes to find
A fhadow of delight, a dream of peace,

From years of pain one moment of releafe;
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 last
Has through this doleful vale of mifery past;
Who to his destin'd stage has carry'd on
The tedious load, and laid his burden down;
Whom the cut brafs, or wounded marble, fhews
Victor o'er Life, and all her train of woes.
He happier yet, who, privileg'd by Fate
To shorter labour and a lighter weight,
Receiv'd but yesterday the gift of breath,
Order'd to-morrow to return to death.
But O! beyond description happiest he,

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Who ne'er muft roll on Life's tumultuous fea;

Who, with blefs'd freedom, from the general doom
Exempt, muft never force the teeming womb,
Nor fee the fun, nor fink into the tomb!

Who breathes, niuft fuffer; and who thinks, muft

mourn;

And he alone is blefs'd, who ne'er was born.

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"Yet

"Yet in thy turn, thou frowning Preacher, hear : "Are not these general maxims too severe ?

Say: cannot Power fecure its owner's blifs?

"And is not Wealth the potent fire of Peace? 245 "Are victors blefs'd with fame, or kings with ease?". I tell thee, Life is but one common care; -And Man was born to fuffer, and to fear.

"But is no rank, no ftation, no degree,
*❝ From this contagious taint of sorrow free?”
None, mortal! none! Yet in a bolder ftrain
Let me this melancholy truth maintain.
But hence, ye worldly and prophane, retire:
For I adapt my voice, and raise my lyre,
To notions not by vulgar ear receiv'd :

Ye ftill must covet life, and be deceiv'd:
Your very fear of death fhall make you try
To catch the fhade of immortality;

Wishing on earth to linger, and to fave
Part of its prey from the devouring grave;
To those who may furvive you to bequeath
Something entire, in fpite of Time and Death;
A fancy'd kind of being to retrieve,
And in a book, or from a building, live.

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False hope! vain labour! let fome ages fly :
The dome fhall moulder, and the volume die :

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Wretches, ftill taught, ftill will ye think it strange,
That all the parts of this great fabric change,
Quit their old station and primæval frame,

And lofe their fhape, their effence, and their name? 270

Reduce