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II.

When to the margin of the grave we come,
And scarce have one black painful hour to live,
No hopes, no prospect of a kind reprieve,
To ftop our speedy paffage to the tomb;

How moving, and how mournful is the fight,
How wond'rous pitiful, how wond'rous fad !
Where then is refuge, where is comfort to be had,
In the dark minutes of the dreadful night,
To chear our drooping fouls for their amazing flight?
Feeble and languishing in bed we lye,
Defpairing to recover, void of rest,
Wishing for death, and yet afraid to die;
Terrors and doubts distract our breast,

With mighty agonies, and mighty pains opprest.
III.

Our face is moisten'd with a clammy sweat ;
Faint and irregular the pulfes beat;
The blood unactive grows,

And thickens as it flows,

Depriv'd of all its vigour, all its vital heat.
Our dying eyes roul heavily about;
Their light just going out;

And for fome kind allistance call:
But pity, useless pity's all

Our weeping friends can give,

Or we receive;

Tho' their defires are great, their pow'rs are finall.
The tongue's unable to declare

The pains, the griefs, the miseries we bear;
How infupportable our torments are.
Mufic no more delights our deaf'ning ears,
Reftores our joys, or diffipates our fears;
But all is melancholy, all is fad,

In robes of deepest mourning clad:

For ev'ry faculty, and ev'ry sense
Partakes the woe of this dire exigence.

IV.

Then we are fenfible, too late,

'Tis no advantage to be rich or great :

For all the fulfome pride, and pageantry of ftate,

No confolation brings;

Riches and honours then are useless things,
Tastless, or bitter all;

And, like the book which the apostle eat,
To the ill-judging palate fweet,

But turn at last to naufeousness and gall.
Nothing will then our drooping spirits chear
But their remembrance of good actions paft;
Virtue's a joy that will for ever last,
And makes pale death lefs terrible appear;
Takes out his baneful fting, and palliates our fear.
In the dark anti-chambers of the grave,

What wou'd we give, ev'n all we have,
All that our cares and industry had gain'd,
All that our fraud, our policy, our art obtain'd,
Could we recal thofe fatal hours again,
Which we confum'd in fenfeless vanities,
Ambitious follies, and luxurious ease;

For then they urge our terrors, and increase our pain.
V.

Our friends and relatives ftand weeping by,

Diffolv'd in tears to fee us die,

And plunge into the deep abyfs of wide eternity.
In vain they mourn, in vain they grieve,
Their forrows cannot ours relieve.

They pity our deplorable estate;

But what, alas, can pity do,

To foften the decrees of fate!

Befides, the fentence is irrevocable too.

All their endeavours to preserve our breath,
Tho' they do unfuccesful prove,

Show us how much, how tenderly they love,
But cannot cut off the entail of death.
Mournful they look, and croud about our bed:
One with officious hafte

Brings us a cordial, we want sense to tafte:
Another foftly raises up our head;

This wipes away the fweat, that, fighing cries
See what convulfions, what ftrong agonies,
Both foul and body undergo!

His pains no intermiffion know;

For ev'ry gafp of air he draws, returns in fighs.

Each

Each wou'd his kind assistance lend

To ferve his dear relation, or his dearer friend;
But still in vain with destiny they all contend.
VI.

Our father, pale with grief and watching grown,
Takes our cold hand in his, and cries adieu,
Adicu, my child, now I must follow you ;

Then weeps, and gently lays it down.
Our fons, who in their tender years
Were objects of our cares, and of our fears,
Come trembling to our bed, and kneeling cry,
Blefs us, O father! now before
Bless us, and be you bleft to all eternity.

you

die;

Our friend, whom equal to ourselves we love,
Compaffionate and kind,

Cries, will you leave me here behind,
Without me fly to the bleft feats above?
Without me, did I fay, ah no!
Without thy friend thou can't not go,
For tho' thou leav'ft me grov'ling here below,
My foul with thee fhall upward fly,
And bear thy fpirit company,

Thro' the bright paffage of the yielding fky.
Ev'n death that parts thee from thyself, shall be
Incapable to feparate

(For 'tis not in the power of fate)

My friend, my beft, my dearest friend, and me:
But fince it must be so, farewel

For ever! No; for we shall meet again,

And live like gods, tho' now we die like men, In the eternal regions, where juft fpirits dwell.

VII.

The foul, unable longer to maintain
The fruitless and unequal ftrife,
Finding her weak endeavours vain,
To keep the counterscarp of life;
By flow degrees retires toward the heart,
And fortifies that little fort

With all the kind artillery of art;
Botanic legions guarding ev'ry port.

But

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But death, whofe arms no mortal can repel,
A formal fiege disdains to lay,

Summons his fierce battalions to the fray,
And in a minute ftorms the feeble citadel.
Sometimes we may capitulate, and he
Pretends to make a folid peace,
But 'tis all fham, all artifice;

That we may negligent and careless be:
For if his armies are withdrawn to day,
And we believe no danger near,

But all is peaceable, and all is clear,
His troops return fome unfufpected way;
While in the foft embrace of fleep we lye,
The fecret murd'rers ftab us, and we die.
VIII.

Since our first parents fall,

Inevitable death defcends on all,

A portion none of human race can miss;
But that which makes it fweet, or bitter, is
The fears of mifery, or certain hopes of bliss:
For when th' impenitent and wicked die,
Loaded with crimes and infamy,
any fenfe at that fad time remains,
They feel amazing terrors, mighty pains,
The earnest of that vast stupendous woe,
Which they to all eternity must undergo
Confin'd in hell with everlasting chains.

If

Infernal fpirits hover in the air,

Like rav'nous wolves, to feize upon the
prey,
And hurry the departed fouls away
To the dark receptacles of defpair;

Where they muft dwell till that tremendous day,

When the loud trump fhall call them to appear
Before a judge most terrible, and most severe:
By whofe juft fentence they must go
To everlasting pains, and endless woe.

IX.

But the good man, whose foul is pure,
Unfpotted, regular, and free

From all the ugly stains of luft, and villany,
Of mercy, and of pardon fure,

Looks

Looks thro' the darkness of the gloomy night,
And fees the dawning of a glorious day;
Sees crouds of angels ready to convey

His foul, whene'er fhe takes her flight,
To the furprizing manfions of immortal light.
Then the celestial guards around him stand,
Nor fuffer the black dæmons of the air
T'oppose his passage to the promis'd land;
Or terrify his thoughts with wild despair;
But all is calm within, and all without is fair.
His prayer, his charity, his virtues prefs
To plead for mercy, when he wants it most;
Not one of all the happy number's lost ;

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And those bright advocates ne'er want fuccefs.
But when the foul's releas'd from dull mortality,
She paffes up in triumph thro' the sky;
Where fhe's united to a glorious throng
Of angels, who with a celeftial fong,
Congratulate her conqueft as fhe flies along.
X.

If therefore all must quit the stage,
When or how foon we cannot know,

But late or early, we are fure to go;
In the fresh bloom of youth, or wither'd age;
We cannot take too fedulous a care,
In this important, grand affair.
For as we die, we must remain ;
Hereafter all our hopes are vain,

To make our peace with heav'n, or to return again.
The heathen, who no better understood
Than what the light of nature taught, declar'd
No future mifery cou'd be prepar'd

For the fincere, the merciful, the good;

But, if there was a state of reft,

They fhou'd with the fame happiness be blest,
As the immortal gods, if gods there were, poffeft.
We have the promise of eternal truth,
Those who live well, and pious paths pursue,
To man, and to their Maker true,
Let 'em expire in age, or youth,

Can never mifs

Their way to everlasting bliss:

But

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