PREFAC E.

S the occafion of this Poem was real, not ficti

tious; fo the method pursued in it, was rather impofed, by what fpontaneoufly arofe in the author's mind on that occafion, than meditated or defigned. 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 fhort morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is fhort, and the morality arifing from it makes the bulk of the Poem. The reafon of it is, That the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the writer.

THE

COMPLAIN T.

NIGHT THE FIRST.

ON

LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

то

THE RIGHT HON. ARTHUR ONSLOW,

T

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

IR'D Nature's fweet reftorer, balmy Sleep! He, like the world, his ready vifit pays Where Fortune fimiles; the wretched he forfakes; Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe, And lights on lids unfullied with a tear. From fhort (as usual) and disturb'd repofe, I wake: How happy they, who wake no more! Yet that were vain, if dreams infeft the grave. I wake, emerging from a fea of dreams Tumultuous; where my wreck'd defponding thought, r From wave to wave of fancied mifery,