P R E FACE.

A

tious;

S the occasion of this Poem was real, not fitti

so the method pursued in it, was rather imposed, by what spontaneously arose in the author's mind on that occasion, than meditated or deĥgned. Which will appear very probable from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of Poetry, which is, from long narrations to draw short morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is short, and the morality arising from it makes the bulk of the Poem. The reason of it is, That the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the writer.

THI

COM P L A IN T.

NIGHT THE FIRST.

ON

LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

TO

THE RIGHT HON. ARTHUR ONSLOW,

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

TIR'D Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!

He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where Fortune finiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

5
From short (as usual) and disturb’d repose,
I wake: How happy they, who wake no more !
Yet that were vain, if dreams infelt the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd defponding thought, 15
From wave to wave of fancied misery,