In weakness safe, the fex I fee With idle luftre shine ; For what are all their joys to me, Which cannot now be mine? But hold--I feel my gout decrease, And truths which wou'd disturb my peace Vainly the time I have to roll In fad reflection Alies; Ye fondling paffions of my foul ! I wifely change the scene within, To things that us'd to please, In pain, philosophy is spleen, In health, 'tis only ease. A NIGHT-PIECE on DEATH. B Y the blue taper's trembling light, No more I waste the wakeful night, Intent with endless view to pore The schoolmen and the fages o'er : Where wisdom's furely taught below. How deep yon azure dies the fky! The grounds which on the right aspire, The The left presents a place of graves, Whose wall the filent water laves. That steeple guides thy doubtful fight Time was like thee they life poffeft, Those graves, with bending Ofier bound,. That nameless heave the crumbled ground, The flat smooth stones that bear a name, The chiffel's flender help to fame, (Which ere our fet of friends decay. Their frequent steps may wear away ;) Men, half ambitious, all unknown, The marble tombs that rife on high, Whose dead in vaulted arches lye, Whofe pillars fwell with fculptur'd stones, Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones, Thefe, all the poor remains of state, Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades, All flow, and wan, and wrap'd with shrouds, They rife in vifionary crouds, And all with fober accent cry, Think, mortal, what it is to dye. Now from yon black and fun'ral yew, That bathes the charnel-house with dew, Methinks, I hear a voice begin ; (Ye ravens, ceafe your croaking din, Ye tolling clocks, no time refound O'er the long lake and midnight ground) It fends a peal of hollow groans, Thus fpeaking from among the bones. When men my scythe and darts supply, How great a King of Fears am I! They view me like the laft of things; Nor can the parted body know, Nor wants the foul, these forms of woe: As |