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• Th' Opinions, and Defires, and Pleasures rife Behind the gate, thick-glitt'ring on our eyes;

Thick as bright atoms in the folar ray,

Diverse their drap'ry and profufely gay.

These tempting forms, each like a mistress dreft,
Our early steps with pow'rful charms arrest:
Soon as we enter life, with various art

Of dalliance they affail th' unguarded heart.
All promise joy, we rush to their embrace;
To blifs or ruin here begins our race.
Happy, thrice happy, who intrust their youth
To right Opinions, and afcend to Truth:
Whom Wisdom tutors, whom the Virtues hail,
And with their own substantial feast regale.
The rest are harlots: by their flatt'ries won,
In chase of empty sciences we run:

Or Fortune's vanities purfue, and stray
With fenfual Pleafure in more dang❜rous way.
See the mad rounds their giddy followers tread,
Delufion's cup ftrong working in their head.
Fast as one fhoal of fools have delug'd through,
Succeeding fhoals the bufy farce renew.

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Who on that globe Stands ftretching to her flight? 105 Wild feems her afpect, and bereav'd of fight.

The first court, or the fenfual life.

Fortune,

Fortune, blind, frantic, deaf. With restless' wings
The world she ranges, and her favours flings:
Flings and refumes, and plunders and bestows,
Caprice divides the bleffings and the woes.
Her grace unstable as her tott'ring ball,
Whene'er fhe fmiles fhe meditates our fall.
When most we truft her, we are cheated most,
In defolating lofs we mourn our boast:
Her cruel blaft invades our hafty fruit,

And withers all our glory at the root.

What mean thofe multitudes around her? Why
Such motley attitudes perplex our eye?

Some, in the act of wildest rapture, leap,

In agony fome wring their bands, and weep.
Th' unreas'ning crowd; to paffion's fequel blind,
By paffion fir'd and impotent of mind:
Competitors in clamorous fuit, to share
The toys fhe toffes with regardless air;
Trifles, for folid worth by most purfu'd,
Bright-colour'd vapours, for fantastic good:
The pageantry of wealth, the blaze of fame,
Titles, an offspring to extend the name,
Huge ftrength, or beauty which the strong obey,
The victor's laurel, and defpotic fway.

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130 Thefe,

These, humour'd in their vows, with lavish praise
The glory of the gracious goddess raise :
Those other, lofers in her chance-full game,
Shorn of their all, or frustrate in their aim,
In murmurs of their hard mishap complain,
And curfe her partial and malignant reign.

Now, further still in this low sensual ground,
Traverse yon flow'ry mount's fequefter'd bound.
In the green center of thofe citron fhades,

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'Mong gardens, fountains, flow'ry walks, and glades, 140 Voluptuous Sin her pow'rful spells employs,

Souls to feduce, feducing fhe destroys.

See! Lewdness, loosely zon'd, her bofom bares,

See! Riot her luxurious bowl prepares:

There ftands Avidity, with ardent eye,

There dimpling Adulation smooths her lye.

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All eafe, all mirth, and high felicity.

Whom

Whome'er by their inveigling arts they win
To tread that magic paradife of Sin,

In airy dance his jocund hours fkim round,
Sparkles the bowl, the feftal fongs refound:
His blood ferments, fir'd by the wanton glance,
And his loofe foul diffolves in am'rous trance.
While circulating joys to joys fucceed,
While new delights the fweet delirium feed ;
The prodigal, in raptur'd fancy, roves
O'er fairy fields and through Elyfian groves:
Sees glitt❜ring vifions in fucceffion rife,
And laughs at Socrates the chafte and wife.
'Till, fober'd by distress, awake, confus'd,
Amaz'd, he knows himself a wretch abus'd;
A short illufion his imagin'd feast,
Himself the game, himself the slaughter'd beast.
Now, raving for his fquander'd wealth in vain,
Slave to those tyrant jilts he drags their chain:
Compell'd to fuffer hard and hungry need,
Compell❜d to dare each foul and desp❜rate deed.
Villain, or knave, he joins the sharping tribe,
Robs altars, or is perjur'd for a bribe:

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Stabs for a purse, his country pawns for gold,
To every crime of blackest horror fold,

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Shiftless at length, of all resource bereft,

In the dire gripe of Punishment he's left.

Obferve this strait-mouth'd cave: th' unwilling light

Juft fhews the difmal deep defcent to night.

In centry fee these haggard crones, whose brows

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Rude locks o'erhang, a frown their forehead ploughs:
Swarthy and foul their fhrivell'd skin behold,

And flutt'ring fhreds their vile defence from cold.

High-brandishing her lafh, with ftern regard,

Stands Punishment, an ever-waking ward;
While fullen Melancholy mopes behind,

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Fix'd, with her head upon her knees reclin'd:

And, frantic with remorseful fury, there

Fierce Anguish ftamps, and rends her shaggy hair. 190
Who that ill-featur'd spectre of a man,

Shiv'ring in nakedness, fo fpare and wan?
And fhe, whofe eye aghaft with horror ftares,
Whofe meagre form a fifter's likeness bears?
Loud Lameniation, wild Defpair. All these,
Fell vulturs, the devoted caitiff feize.

Ah dreadful durance! with these fiends to dwell!
What tongue the terrors of his foul can tell?
Worry'd by these foul fiends, the wretch begins
Sharp penance, wages of remember'd fins:

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Then

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