Death fhuns the naked Throat, and proffer'd Breaft; He flies when call'd to be a welcome Gueft. Sed. Ant. & Cleop. I wish to die, yet dare not Death endure ! Deteft the Med'cine, yet defire the Cure. Oh had I Courage but to meet my Fate, That fhort dark Paffage to a future State; That melancholy Riddle of a Breath, That Something or that Nothing after Death! Cowards die many times before their Death; The Valiant never taste of Death but once.
But Men with Horrour Diffolution meet;
The Minutes ev'n of painful Life are sweet.
Poor abje& Creatures! How they fear to die?
Who never knew one happy Hour in Life,
Yet fhake to lay it down. Is Load fo pleasant?
Or has Heav'n hid the Happiness of Death,
That Men may dare to live?
Of Death, and many are the ways that lead
To his grim Cave; all difmal! yet to Senfe
More terrible at th'Entrance than within.
Tho' we each Day with Coft repair,
Death mocks our greateft Skill and utmoft Care;
Nor loves the Fair, nor fears the Strong,
And he that lives the longeft dies but young.
And once depriv'd of Light,
We're wrapt in Mifts of endless Night.
One Mortal feels Fate's fudden Blow,
Another's ling'ring Death comes flow:
And what of Life they take from thee,
The Gods may give to punish me.
The Cause and Spring of Motion, from above
Hung down on Earth the golden Chain of Love.
Great was th'Effect, and high was his Intent,
When Peace among the jarring Seeds he fent.
Fire, Flood, and Earth, and Air by this were bound;
And Love, the common Link, the new Creation crown'd:
The Chain ftill holds; for tho' the Forms decay,
Eternal Matter never wears away.
For the first Mover certain Bounds has plac'd,
How long thefe perishable Forms shall laft;
Nor can they laft beyond the Time affign'd'
By that all-feeing and all-making Mind:
Shorten their Hours they may, for Will is free,
But never påfs th'appointed Destiny.
So Men opprefs'd, when weary of their Breath,
Throw off the Burden, and fubborn their Death.
Then fince thefe Forms begin, and have their End,
On fome unalter'd Caufe they fure depend.
Part of the Whole are we; but God the Whole,
Who gives us Life, and animating Soul:
For Nature cannot from a Part derive
That Being which the Whole can only give.
He perfect ftable, but imperfect We,
Subject to change, and different in Degree,
Plants, Beafts, and Men; and as our Organs are,
We more or lefs of his Perfection fhare.
But by a long Descent th’ethereal Fire
Corrupts, and Forms, the mortal Part, expire;
As he withdraws his Virtue, fo they pafs,
And the fame Matter makes another Mafs.
This Law th'omnifcient Pow'r was pleas'd to give,
That ev'ry Kind fhould by Succeffion live:
That Individuals die, his Will ordains;
The propagated Species ftill remains.
What makes all this but Jupiter the King,
At whofe Command we perifh, and we fpring?
Then 'tis our beft, fince thus ordain'd to die,
To make a Virtue of Neceffity:
Take what he gives, fince to rebel is vain ;
The Bad grows better which we well fuftain.
And could we chufe the Time, and chufe aright,
'Tis beft to die, our Honour at the Height,
When we have done our Ancestors no Shame,
But ferv'd our Friends, and well fecur'd our Fame;
Then fhould we wifh our happy Life to close,
And leave no more for Fortune to difpofe;
So fhould we make our Death a glad Relief,
From future Shame, from Sickriefs, and from Grief;
Enjoying while we live the present Hour,
And dying in our Excellence and Flow'r.
Then round our Death-bed ev'ry Friend should run,
And joy us of our Conqueft early won.
While the malicious World with envious Tears,
Should grudgs our happy End, and wifh it theirs.
When Honour's loft 'tis a Relief to die;
Death's but a fure Retreat from Infamy.
'Tis to the Vulgar Death too harsh appears;
The Ill we feel is only in our Fears.
To die is landing on fome filent Shore,
Where Billows never break, nor Tempests roar ;
E'er well we feel the friendly Stroke 'tis o'er.
The Wife thro'. Thought th'Infults of Death defy,
The Fools thro' bleft Infenfibility.
'Tis what the Guilty fear, the Pious crave,
Sought by the Wretch, and vanquish'd by the Brave:
It eafes Lovers, fets the Captives free ;
And tho' a Tyrant, offers Liberty.
I, but to die, and go we know not where,
To lie in cold Obftruction, and to rot:
This fenfible warm Motion to become
A kneaded Clod; and the delighted Spirit
To bathe in fiery Floods, or to refide
In thrilling Regions of thick ribbed Ice:
To be imprison'd in the viewless Winds,
Or blown with reftlefs Violence about
The pendant World; or to be worse than worst
Of thofe that lawless and uncertain Thought
Imagine howling; 'tis too horrible!
The wearieft and moft loathed wordly Life,
That Pain, Age, Penury, and Imprisonment
Can lay on Nature, is a Paradife
To what we fear of Death.
The Thought of Death to one near Death is dreadful:
Oh 'tis a fearful thing to be no more;
Or if to be, to wander after Death;
To walk, as Spirits do, in Brakes all Day,
And when the Darkness comes, to glide in Paths
That lead to Graves, and in the filent Vault
Where lies your own pale Shrowd, to hover o'er it,
Striving to enter your forbidden Corps,
And often, often vainly breathe your Ghoft
Into your lifeless Lips.
Then like a lone, benighted Traveller
Shut out from Lodging, fhall your Groans be answer'd
By whistling Winds, whofe ev'ry Blast will shake
Your tender Form to Atoms.
Death is not dreadful to a Mind refolv'd,
It feems as natural as to be born.
Groans, and Convulfions, and difcolour'd Faces,
Friends weeping round us, Blacks, and Obfequies,
Make Death a dreadful thing: The Pomp of Death
Is far more terrible than Death it self.
When the Sun fets, Shadows that fhew'd at Noon
But fmall, appear moft long and terrible:
So when we think Fate hovers o'er our Heads,
Our Apprehenfions fhoot beyond all Bounds:
Owls, Ravens, Crickets, feem the Watch of Death;
Nature's worst Vermin fcare her God-like Sons ;
Echoes, the very Leavings of a Voice,
Grow babbling Ghofts, and call us to our Graves.
Each Mole-Hill Thought fwells to a huge Olympus ;
While we fantastick Dreamers heave and puff,
And sweat with an Imagination's Weight.
Seem, as we journey on, to lofe their Horrour;
At near Approach the Monsters form'd by Fear,
Are vanish'd all, and leave the Profpe&t clear.
Amidft the gloomy Vale a pleafing Scene,
With Flow'rs adorn'd, and never-fading Green,
Inviting ftands to take the Wretched in.
No Wars, no Wrongs, no Tyrants, no Defpair,
Disturb the Quiet of a Place fo fair,
But injur'd Lovers find Elixium there.
Death only can be dreadful to the Bad:
To Innocence, 'tis like a Bug-bear drefs'd
To frighten Children: Pull but off his Mask,
And he'll appear a Friend.
Oh that I lefs could fear to lose this Being!
Which like a Snow-ball in my Coward-hand,
The more 'tis grafp'd the fafter melts away. Dryd. All for Love.
From Death we rofe to Life; 'tis but the fame,
Thro' Life to pass again from whence we came.
With Shame we fee our Paffions can prevail,
Where Reason, Certainty, and Virtue fail:
Honour, that empty Name, can Death defpife;
Scorn'd Love to Death, as to a Refuge, flies;
And Sorrow waits for Death with longing Eyes.
Hope triumphs o'er the Thoughts of Death; and Fate
Cheats Fools, and flatters the Unfortunate.
We fear to lofe what a fmall Time must waste,
Till Life it felf grows the Difeafe at last:
Begging for Life, we beg for more Decay,
And to be long a dying only pray.
Why are we then fo fond of mortal Life,
Befet with Dangers and maintain'd with Strife?
A Life which all our Gare can never fave;
One Fate attends us, and one common Grave.
Befides, we tread but a perpetual Round,
We ne'er ftrike out, but beat the former Ground,
And the fame maukifh Joys in the fame Track are found.
For ftill we think an abfent Bleffing beft,
Which cloys, and is no Bleffing when poffefs'd,
A new-arifing With expels it from the Breaft.
The feav'rish Thirft of Life increases ftill,
We call for more and more, and never have our Fill;
Yet know not what to Morrow we fhall try,
What Dregs of Life in the laft Draught may lie;
Nor by the longest Life we can attain,
One Moment from the Length of Death we gain,
For all behind belongs to his eternal Reign.
When once the Fates have cut the mortal Thread,
The Man as much to all Intents is dead,
Who dies to Day, and will as long be so,
As he who dy'd a thousand Years ago.
What has this Bugbear Death to frighten Man,
If Souls can die as well as Bodies can ?
For, as before our Birth we felt no Pain,
So, when our mortal Frame shall be disjoyn'd,
The lifeless Lump uncoupl'd from the Mind,
From Senfe of Grief and Pain we fhall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not BE:
Nay, ev'n fuppofe when we have fuffer'd Fate,
The Soul could feel in her divided State;
What's that to us? For WE are only WE
While Souls and Bodies in one Frame agree:
Nay, tho' our Atoms should revolve by chance,
And Matter leap into the former Dance,
What Gain to us would all this Bustle bring?
The new-made Man would 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 fhall feel the Smart,
Which to that other Mortal fhall accrue,
Whom of our Matter Time fhall mould anew;
Because a Paufe of Life, a gaping Space,
Has come betwixt, where Memory lies dead,
And all the wand'ring Motions from the Sense are fled.
For whofoe'er fhall 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 Paufe 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 mould'ring Limbs fhall rot,
Or Flames, or Jaws of Beafts devour his Mafs,
Know he's an unfincere, unthinking Afs:
The Fool is to his own caft Offals kind;
He boasts no Senfe can after Death remain,
Yet makes himself a Part of Life again,
As if fome other HE could feel the Pain.
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