When Heav'n and Earth were in confusion hurl'd

For the debated Empire of the World;
Which aw'd with dreadful expectation lay,
Sure to be Slaves, uncertain who fhou'd sway:
So, when our mortal frame fhall be disjoyn'd,
The lifeless Lump, uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not Be.
Though Earth in Seas, and Seas in Heav'n were lost,
We shou'd not move, we only fhou'd be toft.
Nay, ev'n fuppose when we have fuffer'd Fate,
The Soul cou'd feel, in her divided.ftate,

What's that to us, for we are only we,
While Souls and Bodies in one frame agree;
Nay, tho' our Atoms shou'd revolve by chance,
And matter leap into the former dance;
Tho' time our life and motion cou'd reftoré,
And make our Bodies what they were before,
What gain to us wou'd all this bustle bring,
The new made Man wou'd be another thing,
When once an interrupting pause is made,
That individual Being is decay'd.

We, who are dead and gone, fhall bear no part
In all the pleasures, nor (hall feel the smart,

Which to that other Mortal fhall accrew,

Whom, of our Matter, Time shall mould anew.
For backward if you look, on that long space
Of Ages paft, and view the changing face
Of Matter, toft and variously combin'd

In fundry fhapes, 'tis eafie for the mind
From thence t'infer, that Seeds of things have been
In the fame order as they now are feen :
Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace,
Becaufe a pause of Life, a gaping space.

Has come betwixt, where memory lies dead,
And all the wandring motions from the fenfe are fled.
For whofoe're shall in misfortunes live,

Muft Be, when thofe misfortunes fhall arrive.
And fince the Man who Is not, feels not woe,
(For death exempts him, and wards off the blow,
Which we, the living, only feel and bear)
What is there left for us in Death to fear?
When once that pause of life has come between,
'Tis juft the fame as we had never been.

And therefore if a Man bemoan his lot,

That after death his mouldring limbs shall rot,
Or flames, or jaws of Beafts devour his Mass,
Know he's an unfincere, unthinking Ass.

A

A fecret Sting remains within his mind,
The Tool is to his own caft offals kind';
He boasts no fenfe can after death remain,
Yet makes himself a part of life again;

As if fome other He could feel the pain.

If, while he live, this Thought moleft his head,
What Wolf or Vulture fhall deyour me dead?

He wasts his days in idle grief, nor can
Distinguish 'twixt the Body and the Man;
But thinks himself can still himself furvive:
And what when dead he feels not, feels alive.
Then he repines that he was born to die,
Nor knows in death there is no other He;
No living He remains his grief to vent,
And o're his fenfelefs Carcafs to lament.
If after death 'tis painful to be torn

By Birds and Beasts, then why not so to burn,
Or drench'd in floods of honey to be foak'd,
Imbalm'd to be at once preferv'd and choak'd;
Or on an ai❜ry Montain's top to lie,
Expos'd to cold and Heav'ns inclemency,
Or crowded in a Tomb, to be oppreft
With Monumental Marble on thy breast?

But

But to be snatch'd from all thy houshold joys From thy Chafte Wife, and thy dear prattling Boys, Whose little Arms about thy Legs are cast,

And climbing for a Kifs prevent their Mother's hafte,
Inspiring fecret pleasure thro' thy Breast,

All these shall be no more: Thy Friends oppreft,
Thy Care and Courage now no more shall free:
Ah Wretch! thou cry'st, ah! miserable me;
One woful day sweeps children, friends, and wife,
And all the brittle bleffings of my life!

Add one thing more, and all thou fay'ft is true;
Thy want and wish of them is vanish'd too,
Which well confider'd, were a quick relief
To all thy vain imaginary grief.

For thou shalt fleep and never wake again,
And quitting life, fhall quit thy living pain.
But we, thy friends, fhall all thofe forrows find,
Which in forgetful death thou leav'st behind,
No time fhall dry our tears, nor drive thee from
our mind.
The worst that can befal thee, measur'd right,
Is a found flumber, and a long good night.
Yet thus the Fools, that would be thought the Wits,
Disturb their mirth with melancholy fits,

When

When healths go round, and kindly brimmers flow,
'Till the fresh Garlands on their foreheads glow,
They whine, and cry, Let us make haste to live,
Short are the joys that human Life can give.
Eternal Preachers, that corrupt the draught,
And pall the God that never thinks, with thought;
Ideots with all that Thought, to whom the worst
Of death, is want of drink, and endless thirst,
Or any fond defire as vain as these.

For ev'n in fleep, the body wrapt in ease,
Supinely lies, as in the peaceful grave,

And wanting nothing, nothing can it crave.
Were that found Sleep eternal, it were Death;
Yet the first Atoms then, the feeds of breath,
Are moving near to fenfe, we do but shake
And rouze that sense, and straight we are awake.
Then death to us, and death's anxiety

Is lefs than nothing, if a lefs cou'd be.
For then our Atoms, which in order lay,
Are scatter'd from their heap, and puff'd away,
And never can return into their place,

When once the pause of Life has left an empty space.
And last, suppose Great Nature's Voice shou'd call,
To thee, or me, or any of us all,