And put good works on board, and wait the wind
That shortly blows us into worlds unknown:
If unconsider'd, too, a dreadful scene!

All should be prophets to themselves; foresee
Their future fate; their future fate foretaste :
This art would waste the bitterness of death.
The thought of death alone the fear destroys.
A disaffection to that precious thought
Is more than midnight darkness on the soul,
Which sleeps beneath it on a precipice,
Puff'd off by the first blast, and lost for ever.
Dost ask, Lorenzo, why so warmly press'd,
By repetition hammer'd on thine ear,

675

689

The thought of death? That thought is the machine,
The grand machine! that heaves us from the dust, 685
And rears us into men. That thought, ply'd home,
Will soon reduce the ghastly precipice
O'erhanging hell, will soften the descent,
And gently slope our passage to the grave.
How warmly to be wish'd! what heart of flesh
Would trifle with tremendous? dare extremes?
Yawn o'er the fate of infinite? what hand,
Beyond the blackest brand of censure bold

690

(To speak a language too well known to thee,)

Would at a moment give its all to Chance,

695

And stamp the die for an Eternity!

Aid me, Narcissa! aid me to keep pace

With Destiny: and, ere her scissars cut

My thread of life, to break this tougher thread

Of moral death, that ties me to the world.

700

Sting thou my slumbering Reason, to send forth
A thought of observation on the foe;

To sally, and survey the rapid march

Of his ten thousand messengers to man,

Who, Jehulike, behind him turns them all.
All accident apart, by Nature sign'd,

705

My warrant is gone out, though dormant yet;
Perhaps behind one moment lurks my fate!

Must I then forward only look for Death?

Backward I turn mine eye, and find him there.

Mar. is a self-survivor every year.

Man, like a stream, is in perpetual flow.
Death's a destroyer of quotidian prey :
My youth, my noontide, his; my yesterday:
The bold invader shares the present hour:
Each moment on the former shuts the grave.
While man is growing, life is in decrease,
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb,
Our birth is nothing but our death begun :
As tapers waste that instant they take fire.

710

715

720

Shall we then fear lest that should come to pass, Which comes to pass each moment of our lives?

If fear we must, let that Death turn us pale
Which murders strength and ardour; what remains
Should ratner call on Death, than dread his call. 725
Ye partners of my fault, and my decline!
Thoughtless of death, but when your neighbour's knell
(Rude visitant!) knocks hard at your dull sense,
And with its thunder scarce obtains your ear!
Be death your theme, in every place and hour;
Nor longer want, ye monumental sires!

A brother tomb to tell you-you shall die.
That death you dread, (so great is Nature's skill!)
Know you shall court, before you shall enjoy.

730

But you are learn'd: in volumes deep you sit, 735 In wisdom shallow. Pompous ignorance! Would you be still more learned than the learn'd? Learn well to know how much need not be known,

And what that knowledge which impairs your sense.

Our needful knowledge, like our needfu! food,
Unhedged, lies open in Life's common field,

740

And bids all welcome to the vital feast.

You scorn what lies before you in the page
Of Nature and Experience, moral truth;

Of indispensable, eternal fruit;

745

Fruit, or which mortals feeding, turn to gods,

And dive in science for distinguish ́d names,
Dishonest fomentation of your pride,

Sinking in virtue as you rise in fame.

Your learning, like the lunar beam, affords
Light, but not heat; it leaves you undevout,
Frozen at heart, while speculation shines.
Awake, ye curious indagators! fond
Of knowing all, but what avails you known.
If you would learn Death's character, attend.

750

755

All casts of conduct, all degrees of health,
All dies of fortune, and all dates of age,
Together shook in his impartial urn,

Come forth at random; or, if choice is made,

The choice is quite sarcastic, and insults

760

All boid conjecture and fond hopes of man.
What countless muititudes not only leave,
But deeply disappoint us, by their deaths!

Though great our sorrow, greater our surprise.
Like other tyrants, Death delights to smite

What, smitten, most proclaims the pride of power
And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme,

To bid the wretch survive the fortunate;

The feeble wrap the' athletic in his shroud;

765

And weeping fathers build their children's tomb: 770

Me thine, Narcissa!-What, though short thy date?
Virtue, not rolling suns, the mind matures.
That life is long which answers life's great end.
The time that bears no fruit deserves no name.
The man of wisdom is the man of years.

In hoary youth Methusalems may die;
O how misdated on their flattering tombs!
Narcissa's youth has lectured me thus far :

And can her gaiety give counsel too?
That, like the Jews' famed oracle of gems,
Sparkles instruction; such as throws new light,
And opens more the character of Death,
Ill known to thee, Lorenzo! this thy vaunt !—
Give Death his due, the wretched and the old;

775

780

E'en let him sweep his rubbish to the grave;
Let him not violate kind Nature's laws,

But own man born to live as well as die.'—

785

Wretched and old thou givest him; young and gay He takes; and plunder is a tyrant's joy.

What if I prove, the farthest from the fear

Are often nearest to the stroke of Fato ?'

All, more than common, menaces an end.

A blaze betokens brevity of life :

790

As if bright embers should emit a flame,

Glad spirits sparkled from Narcissa's eye,

795

And made Youth younger, and taught Life to live.
As Nature's opposites wage endless war,

For this offence, as treason to the deep
Inviolable stupor of his reign,

Where lust and turbulent ambition sleep,

800

Death took swift vengeance. As he life detests,

More life is still inore odious; and, reduced

By conquest, aggrandizes more his power.

But wherefore aggrandized?—By Heaven's decree
To plant the soul on her eternal guard,

805

In awful expectation of our end.

Thus runs Death's dread commission: 'Strike, but so As most alarms the living by the dead.'

Hence stratagem delights him, and surprise,

And cruel sport with man's securities.

810

Not simple conquest, triumph is his aim;

And where least fear'd, there conquest triumphs most.
This proves my bold assertion not too bold.

What are his arts to lay our fears asleep?
Tiberian arts his purposes wrap up
In deep Dissimulation's darkest night.

815

Like princes unconfess'd in foreign courts,

Who travel under cover, Death assumes

The name and look of Life, and dwells among us:
He takes all shapes that serve his black designs: 820

Though master of a wider empire far

Than that o'er which the Roman Eagle flew,

Like Nero, he's a fiddler, charioteer :
Or drives his phaëton in female guiso;

Quite unsuspected, till, the wheel beneath,

His disarray'd oblation he devours.

He most affects the forms least like himself,

His slender self: hence burly corpulence
Is his familiar wear, and sleek disguise.
Behind the rosy bloom he loves to lurk,
Or ambush in a smile; or, wanton, dive
In dimples deep; Love's eddies, which draw in
Unwary hearts, and sink them in despair.
Such on Narcissa's couch he loiter'd long
Unknown, and when detected, still was seen
To smile such peace has Innocence in death!
Most happy they, whom least his arts deceive'
One eye on Death, and one full fix'd on Heaven,
Becomes a mortal and immortal man.
Long on his wiles a piqued and jealous spy,
I've seen, or dream'd I saw, the tyrant dress,

:

825

830

835

840

Lay by his horrors, and put on his smiles.
Say, Muse! for thou remember'st, call it back,
And show Lorenzo the surprising scene;

If 'twas a dream, his genius can explain.

845

'Twas in a circle of the gay I stood:

Death would have enter'd; Nature push'd him back ·

Supported by a doctor of renown,

His point he gain'd; then artfully dismiss'd

The sage; for Death design'd to be conceal'd:

850

He gave an old vivacious usurer

His meagre aspect, and his naked bones,
In gratitude for plumping up his prey,
A pamper'd spendthrift, whose fantastic air,
Well fashion'd figure, and cockaded brow,
He took in change, and underneath the prido
Of costly linen tuck'd his filthy shroud.
His crooked bow he straightened to a cane,
And hid his deadly shafts in Myra's eyo.
The dreadful masquerader thus equipp'd,

855

860