Our only CURE for the FEAR OF DEATH;
Proper SENTIMENTS of HEART on that inestimable Bleffing.
To the HONOURABLE Mr YORKE.
A Much indebted muse, O YORKE! intrudes.
Amid the smiles of fortune and of youth,
Thine ear is patient of a ferious fong.
How deep implanted in the breast of
The dread of Death? I fing its fov'reign cure.
Why start at Death? where is he? Death arriv'd Is past; not come, or gone, he's never here. Ere hope, Jenfation fails; black-boding man Receives, not fuffers death's tremendous blow. The knell, the throwd, the mattock and the grave; The deep damp vault, the darknets and the worm; These are the bugbears of a winter's eve, The terrors of the living, not the dead. Imagination's fool, and error's wretch, Man makes a death, which nature never made; Then on the point of his own fancy falls; And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.
But were death frightful, what has age to fear? If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe, And shelter in his hospitable gloom. I scarce can meet a monument, but holds My younger; every date cries-" Come away." And what recalls me? look the world around, And tell me what the wisest cannot tell. Should any born of woman give his thought Full range, on just dislike's unbounded field Of things the vanity; of men, the flaws; Flaws in the best; the many, flaw all o'er. As leopards fpotted, or as Ethiops dark; Vivacious ill; good dying immature, (How immature, NARCISSA's marble tells),
And at its death bequeathing endless pain;
His heart, tho' bold, will ficken at the fight,
And spend itself in sighs, for future scenes.
But grant to life (and just it is to grant
To lucky life) some perquisites of joy;
A time there is, when like a thrice-told tale,
And that of no great moment or delight,
Long-rifled life of sweet can yield no more,
But from our comment on the comedy,
Pleasing reflections on parts well sustain'd,
Or purpos'd emendations where we fail'd,
Or hopes of plaudits from our candid judge,
When, on their exit, souls are bid unrobe,
Toss Fortune back her tinfel, and her plume,
And
and drop this mask of flesh behind the scene.
With me, that time is come; my world is dead;
A new world rifes, and new manners reign:
Foreign comedians, a spruce band! arrive,
To push me from the scene, or hiss me there.
What a pert race starts up! the strangers gaze,
And I at them; my neighbour is unknown;
Nor that the worst: ah me! the dire effect
Of loit'ring here, of death defrauded long;
Of old fo gracious (and let that fuffice)
My very master knows me not.
Shall I dare fay, peculiar is the fate;
I've been so long remember'd, I'm forgot.
An object ever pressing dims the fight,
And hides behind its ardor to be seen.
When in his courtiers ears I pour my plaint,
They drink it as the nectar of the great;
And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow
Refufal! canft thou wear a finoother forin?
Indulge me, 'nor conceive I drop my theme:
Who cheapens life, abates the fear of death:
Twice-told the period fpent on stubborn Troy,
Court-favour, yet untaken, I besiege;
Ambition's ill-judg'd effort to be rich.
Alas! ambition makes my litile, less;
Embitt'ring the poffefs'd: why with for more?
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst;
Philofophy's reverse! and health's decay!
Were I as plump as stall'd theology,
Wishing would waste me to this shade again.
Were I as wealthy as a South-fea dream,
Wishing is an expedient to be poor:
Wishing, that constant hectic of a fool;
Caught at a court; purg'd off by purer air
And fimpler diet; gifts of rural life!
Bleft be that hand divine which gently laid
My heart at rest beneath this humble thed.
The world's a stately bark, on dang'rous seas,
With pleasure seen, but boarded at our peril:
Here, on a fingle plank, thrown fafe ashore,
I hear the tumult of the distant throng,
As that of feas remote, or dying storms;
And meditate on scenes more filent hill;
Purfue my theme, and fight the fear of death..
Here, like a fhepherd gazing from his hut,
Touching his reed, or leaning on his fuaff,
Eager Ambition's fiery chace Lifee;
I fee the circling hunt of noisy men,
Burst law's inclofure, leap the mounds of right,
Pursuing and pursu'd, each others prey;
As wolves for rapine; as the fox, for wiles;
Till Death, that mighty hunter, earths them all.
Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?
What tho' we wade in wealth, or foar, in fame?
Earth's highest station ends in, "Here he lyes:"
And "dult to dust" concludes her nobleft fong.
If this fong lives, posterity shall know
One tho' in Britain born, with courtiers bred,
Who thought even gold might come a day too late,
Nor on his fubtle death-bed plann'd his scheme
For future vacancies in church or state;
Some avocation deeming it to die;
Unbit by rage canine of dying rich;
Guilt's blunder! and the loudest laugh of hell.
O my coëvals! remnants of yourselves!
Poor human ruins, tott'ring o'er the grave!
Shall we, shall aged men, like aged trees,
Strike deeper their vile root, and clofer cling,
Still more enamour'd of this wretched foil?
Shall our pale, wither'd hands be still stretch'd out,
Trembling at once with eagerness and age?
With avrice and convulfions grafping hard?
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