But if my bleffings thou haft thrown away,

If indigested joys pafs'd thro', and would not ftay,
Why doft thou wish for more to fquander ftill?
If life be grown a load, a real ill,

And I would all thy cares and labours end,
Lay down thy burden, fool, and know thy friend.
To please thee, I have empty'd all my store,
I can invent, and can fupply no more;

But run the round again, the round I ran before.
Suppofe thou art not broken yet with years,
Yet ftill the felf-fame scene of things appears,
And would be ever, couldft thou ever live;

For life is still but life, there's nothing new to give.
What can we plead against so just a bill ›
We ftand convicted, and our cause goes ill.
But if a wretch, a man opprefs'd by fate,
Should beg of nature to prolong his date,
She speaks aloud to him with more difdain,
Be ftill, thou martyr fool, thou covetous of pain.
But if an old decrepit fot lament;

}

What thou (the cries) who haft out-liv'd content!
Doft thou complain, who hast enjoy'd my store ?
But this is ftill th' effect of wifhing more.
Unfatisfy'd with all that Nature brings;
Loathing the present, liking absent things;
From hence it comes thy vain defires at ftrife
Within themselves, have tantaliz'd thy life,
And ghaftly death appear'd before thy fight,
Ere thou haft gorg'd thy foul and fenfes with delight.
Now leave thofe joys, unfuiting to thy age,
To a fresh comer, and refign the stage.
Is nature to be blam'd if thus fhe chide ?
No fure for 'tis her bufinefs to provide
Against this ever-changing frame's decay.
New things to come, and old to pass away.
Z 2

Qne

One being, worn, another being makes;

Chang'd, but not loft; for nature gives and takes :
New matter must be found for things to come,

And these muft wafte like thofe, and follow Nature's doom.
All things, like thee, have time to rife and rot;
And from each other's ruin are begot :

For life is not confin'd to him or thee:
'Tis given to all for ufe, to none for property.
Confider former ages paft and gone,

Whofe circles ended long ere thine begun,
Then tell me, fool, what part in them thou haft ?
Thus may'ft thou judge the future by the past.
What horror feeft thou in that quiet state,
What bugbear dreams to fright thee after fate?
No ghoft, no goblins, that ftill passage keep;
But all is there ferene, in that eternal fleep.
For all the difmal tales, that Poets tell,
Are verify'd on earth, and not in hell.
No Tantalus looks up with fearful eye,

Or dreads th' impending rock to crush him from on high:
But fear of chance on earth difturbs our easy hours,
Or vain imagin'd wrath of vain imagin'd pow'rs.
No Tityus torn by vultures lies in hell;
Nor could the lobes of his rank liver fwell
To that prodigious mafs, for their eternal meal:
Not tho' his monftrous bulk had cover'd o'er

Nine fpreading acres, or nine thousand more;
Not tho' the globe of earth had been the giant's floor.
Nor in eternal torments could he lie;

Nor could his corps fufficient food fupply.
But he's the Tityus, who by love oppreft,
Or tyrant paffion preying on his breast,
And ever anxious thoughts, is robb'd of rest.
The Sifyphis is he, whom noife and ftrife
Seduce from all the foft retreats of life,

}

To

To vex the government, disturb the laws:
Drunk with the fumes of popular applause,

He courts the giddy crowd to make him great,

And sweats and toils in vain, to mount the fovereign feat.
For ftill to aim at pow'r and still to fail,
Ever to ftrive, and never to prevail,
What is it, but, in reafon's true account,
To heave the ftone against the rising mount.

Which urg'd, and labour'd, and forc'd up with pain,
Recoils, and rolls impetuous down, and smokes along the

plain.

Then fill to treat thy ever-craving mind
With ev'ry bleffing, and of ev'ry kind,
Yet never fill thy rav'ning appetite;
Tho' years and seasons vary thy delight,
Yet nothing to be feen of all the store,
But ftill the wolf within thee barks for more;
This is the fable's moral, which they tell
Of fifty foolish virgins damn'd in hell
To leaky veffels, which the liquor fpill;

To veffels of their fex, which none could ever fill.
As for the dog, the furies, and their fnakes,
The gloomy caverns, and the burning lakes,
And all the vain infernal trumpery,

They neither are, nor were, nor e'er can be.
But here on earth the guilty have in view
The mighty pains to mighty mifchiefs due;
Racks, prifons, poifons, the Tarpeian rock,
Stripes, hangmen, pitch, and fuffocating fmoke;
And laft, and moft, if these were caft behind,
Th' avenging horror of a confcious mind,
Whofe deadly fear anticipates the blow,
And fees no end of punishment and woe;
But looks for more, at the last gasp of breath:
This makes an hell on earth, and life a death.

Mean-time when thoughts of death disturb thy head;
Confider, Ancus great and good is dead;
Ancus, thy better far, was born to die;
And thou, doft thou bewail mortality?
So many monarchs with their mighty ftate,
Who rul'd the world, were over-rul'd by fate.
That haughty king, who lorded o'er the main,
And whofe ftupendous bridge did the wild waves reftrain,
(In vain they foam'd, in vain they threatned wreck,
While his proud legions march'd upon their back :)
Him death; a greater monarch, overcame;

Nor fpar'd his guards the more, for their immortal name
The Roman chief, the Carthaginian dread,

Scipio, the thunder-bolt of war, is dead,

And, like a common flave, by fate in triumph led.
The founders of invented arts are loft;

And wits, who made eternity their boast.

Where now is Homer, who poffefs'd the throne?
Th' immortal work remains, the immortal author's gone,
Democritus, perceiving age invade,

His body weaken'd, and his mind decay'd,

Obey'd the fummons with a chearful face;

Made hafte to welcome death, and met him half the race.
That ftroke ev'n Epicurus could not bar,

Tho' he in wit furpais'd mankind, as far
As does the mid-day fun the mid-night ftar.
And thou, doft thou difdain to yield thy breath,
Whofe very
life is little more than death?

More than one half by lazy fleep poffeft;

And when awake, thy foul but nods at beft,
Day-dreams and fickly thoughts revolving in thy breast.

Eternal troubles haunt thy anxious mind,
Whose cause and cure thou never hop'ft to find;
But ftill uncertain, with thyfelf at ftrife,
Thou wander'ft in the labyrinth of life.
O, if the foolish race of man, who find
A weight of cares ftill preffing on their mind,

Could find as well the cause of this unreft,
And all this burden lodg'd within the breast;
Sure they would change their courfe, nor live as now,
Uncertain what to with, or what to vow.

Uneafy both in country and in town,

They fearch a place to lay their burden down.
One, reftlefs in his palace, walks abroad,
And vainly thinks to leave behind the load :
But ftraight returns; for he's as reftless there;
And finds there's no relief in open air.
Another to his villa would retire,

}

And fpurs as hard as if it were on fire;
No fooner enter'd at his country door,
But he begins to ftretch, and yawn, and fnore;
Or feeks the city which he left before.
Thus every man o'erworks his weary will,
To fhun himself, and to shake off his ill :
The fhaking fit returns, and hangs upon him ftill.
No profpect of repofe, nor hope of eafe;
The wretch is ignorant of his disease ;
Which known would all his fruitless trouble fpare;
For he would know the world not worth his care:
Then would he search more deeply for the cause;
And study Nature well, and Nature's laws:
For in this moment lies not the debate,
But on our future, fix'd, eternal state;
That never-changing ftate, which all muft keep,
Whom death has doom'd to everlasting fleep.
Why are we then fo fond of mortal life,
Befet with dangers, and maintain'd with ftrife?
A life, which all our care can never fave ;
One fate attend us, and one common grave.
Befides we tread but à perpetual round;
We ne'er strike out, but beat the former ground,
And the fame maukish joys in the fame track are found.