If golden fconces hang not on the walls,
To light the coftly fuppers and the balls;
If the proud palace fhines not with the state
Of burnish'd bowls, and of reflected plate;
If well-tun'd harps, nor the more pleafing found
Of voices, from the vaulted roofs rebound;
Yet on the grafs, beneath a poplar fhade,
By the cool ftream, our carele's limbs are lay'd;
With cheaper pleafures innocently bleft,
When the warm fpring with gaudy flow'rs is dreft.
Nor will the raging fever's fire abate,
With golden canopies and beds of ftate:
But the poor patient will as foon be found
On the hard mattress, or the mother ground.
Then fince our bodies are not eas'd the more
By birth, or pow'r, or fortune's wealthy ftore,
'Tis plain, thefe ufelefs toys of every kind
As little can relieve the lab'ring mind:
Unless we could fuppofe the dreadful fight
Of marshal'd legions moving to the fight,
Could, with their found and terrible array,
Expel our fears, and drive the thoughts of death awa
But, fince the fuppofition vain appears,
Since clinging cares, and trains of inbred fears,
Are not with founds to be affrighted thence,
But in the midst of pomp purfue the prince,
Not aw'd by arms, but in the prefence bold,
Without refpect to purple, or to gold;
Why should not we these pageantries despise;
Whofe worth but in our want of reafon lies?
For life is all in wand'ring errors led;
And just as children are furpriz'd with dread,
And tremble in the dark, fo riper years
E'en in broad day-light are poffefs'd with fears;
And thake at fhadows fanciful and vain,
As thofe which in the breafts of children reign.
Thefe bugbears of the mind, this inward hell,
No rays of outward funfhine can dispel;
But nature and right reafon must display
Their beams abroad, and bring the darkfome foul to-day.
The latter part of the THIRD Book of
Against the Fear of Death.
HAT has this bugbear death to frighten men,
If fouls can die, as well as bodies can?
For, as before our birth we felt no pain,
When Puric arms infefted land and main,
When Heav'n and earth were in confufion hurl'd.
For the debated empire of the world,
Which aw'd with dreadful expectation lay,
Sure to be flaves, uncertain who fhould fway:
So, when our mortal flame fhall be disjoin'd,
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We fhall not feel, because we fhall not Be.
Tho' earth in feas, and feas in Heav'n were loft,
We should not move, we only should be toft.
Nay, even fuppofe when we have suffer'd fate,
The foul could feel in her divided ftate,
What's that to us? for we are only We
While fouls and bodies in one frame agree.
Nay, tho' our atoms fhould revolve by chance,
And matter leap into the former dance;
Tho' time our life and motion could restore,
And make our bodies what they were before,
What gain to us would all this buftle bring?
The new-made man would be another thing.
When once an interrupting paufe 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.
For backward if you look on that long space
Of ages paft, and view the changing face
Of matter, toft and variously combin'd
In fundry shapes, 'tis eafy for the mind
From thence t' infer, that feeds of things have been
In the fame order as they now are seen :
Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace,
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 shall 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 beasts devour his mafs,
Know, he's an unfincere, unthinking afs.
A fecret fting remains within his mind;
The fool is to his own caft offals kind.
He boats no fenfe can after death remain ;
Yet makes himself a part of life again;
As if fome other He could feel the pain.
If, while we live, this thought moleft his head,
What wolf or vultúre fhall devour me dead?
He wastes his days in idle grief, nor can
Diftinguish 'twixt the body and the man;
But thinks himself can ftill himself furvive;
And, what when dead he feels not, feels alive.
Then he repines that he was born to die,
Nor knows in death there is no other He,
No living He remains his grief to vent,
And o'er his fenfelefs carcafe to lament.
If after death 'tis painful to be torn
By birds, and beafts, then why not fo to burn,
Or drench'd in floods of honey to be foak'd,
Imbalm'd to be at once preferv'd and choak'd;
Or on an airy mountain's top to lie,
Expos'd to cold and Heav'n's inclemency;
Or crowded in a tomb to be opprest
With monumental marble on thy breaft?
But to be fnatch'd from all the houshold joys,
From thy chafte wife, and thy dear prattling boys,
Whofe little arms about thy legs are caft,
And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's hafte,
Infpiring fecret pleafure thro' thy breaft;
Ah! these fhall be no more: thy friends oppref
Thy care and courage now no more shall free ;
Ah! wretch, thou cry'ft, ah! miferable me?
One woful day fweeps children, friends, and wife,
And all the brittle bleffings of my life!
Add one thing more, and all thou fay'ft is true;
Thy want and wish of them is vanish'd too:
Which well confider'd were a quick relief
To all thy vain imaginary grief.
For thou shalt fleep, and never wake again,
And, quitting life, fhalt quit thy living pain.
But we thy friends fhall all thofe forrows find,
Which in forgetful death thou leav'ft behind;
No time fhall dry our tears, nor drive thee from our mind.
VOL. II.
The worst that can befal thee, measur'd right,
Is a found flumber, and a long good night.
Yet thus the fools, that would be thought the wits
Disturb their mirth with melancholy fits :
When healths go round, and kindly brimmers flow,
Till the fresh garlands on their foreheads glow,
They whine, and cry, let us make haste to live,
Short are the joys that human life can give.
Eternal preachers, that corrupt the draught,
And pall the God, that never thinks, with thought;
Idiots with all that thought, to whom the worst
Of death, is want of drink, and endless thirst,
Or any fond defire as vain as these.
For, ev'n in fleep, the body wrapt in eafe
Supinely lies, as in the peaceful grave;
And, wanting nothing, nothing can it crave.
Were that found fleep eternal, it were death;
Yet the first atoms then, the feeds of breath,
Are moving near to fenfe; we do but shake
And rouze that fense, and straight we are awake.
Then death to us, and death's anxiety
Is lefs than nothing, if a lefs could be.
For then our atoms, which in order lay,
Are fcatter'd from their heap, and puff'd away,
And never can return into their place,
When once the pause of life has left an empty space.
And laft, fuppofe great Nature's voice fhould call
To thee, or me, or any of us all,
What doft thou mean, ungrateful wretch, thou vain
Thou mortal thing, thus idly to complain,
And figh and fob, that thou shalt be no more?
For if thy life were pleasant heretofore,
If all the bounteous bleffings, I could give,
Thou haft enjoy'd, if thou hast known to live,
And pleasure not leak'd thro' thee like a fieve;
Why doft thou not give thanks as at a plenteous feaft,
Cramm'd to the throat with life, and rife and take thy reft?
|