When once that pause 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 mouldring Limbs shall rot,
Or flames, or jaws of Beafts devour his Mafs,
Know he's an unfincere, unthinking Ass.
A fecret Sting remains within his Mind,
The fool is to his own caft offals kind;
He boafts no fense can after death remain,
Yet makes himself a part of life again;
As if fome other He could feel the pain.
If, while he live, this Thought moleft his Head,
What Wolf or Vulture 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 himfelf 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 Carcafs to lament.
If after death 'tis painful to be torn

}

By Birds and Beafts, then why not so to burn,
Or drench'd in floods of Honey to be soak'd,
Imbalm'd to be at once preferv'd and choak'd;
Or on an airy Mountain's top to lye,
Expos'd to cold and Heav'ns inclemency;
Or crowded in a Tomb to be oppreft
"With monumental Marble on thy Breaft?
But to be fnatch'd from all thy houfhold Joys,
From thy chaft 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 Pleasure thro' thy Breaft,
All thefe fhall be no more: thy Friends oppreft,
Thy Care and Courage now no more fhall 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 wifh 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.

The worst that can befal thee, meafur'd right,
Is a found fumber, 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 hafte 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;
Ideots with all that thought, to whom the worst
Of death, is want of drink, and endless thirst,
Or any fond defire as vain as thefe.

For ev'n in fleep, the body wrapt in cafe,
Supinely lyes, as in the peaceful Grave,
And wanting nothing, nothing can it crave.
Were that found fleep eternal, it were death,
Yer the first Atoms then, the Seeds of breath
Are moving near to fenfe, we do but shake
And roufe that fenfe, and Braight we are awake.
Then death to us, and death's anxiety

Is less 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 paufe of Life has left an empty space,
And Taft, fuppofe great Nature's Voice fhould call
To thee, or me, or any of us all,

What doft thou mean, ungrateful Wretch, thou vais,
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 haft known to live,
And pleasure not leak'd thro' thee like a Sieve;
Why doft thou not give thanks as at a plenteous Feaft,
Cram'd to the Throat with Life, and rife and take
But if my Bleffings thou haft thrown away, [thy reft?
If indigefted Joys pafs'd thro' and would not stay,
Why doft thou wish for more to squander 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,
1 can invent, and can fupply no more;

}

But run the round again, the round I ran before,
Suppose thou art not broken yet with Years,
Yet ftill the felf-fame Scene of things appears,
And would be ever, couldst thou ever live;
For life is ftill but life, there's nothing new to give
What can we plead against so just a Bill?
We ftand convicted, and our Caufe goes ill
But if a Wretch, a Man oppreft 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 Sot lament;

What thou (the crys) 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 abfent 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 [light.
E'er thou hadst gorg'd thy Soul and Senfes with de-

Now leave those Joys, unfuiting to thy Age,
To a fresh Comer, and refign the Stage.
Is Nature to be blam'd if thus the chide
No fure; for 'tis her Business to provide
Against-this ever-changing Frame's decay,
New things to come, and old to pass away.
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 those, and follow Natures
All things, like thee, have time to rife and rot; [doom.
And from each others ruin are begot;

For life is not confin'd to him or thee;
'Tis giv'n to all for Ufe; to none for Property.
Confider former Ages paft and gone,

[high:

Whofe Circles ended long e'er thine begun,
Then tell me Fool, what part in them thou haft?
Thus may'st thou judge the future by the past.
What horrour feeft thou in that quiet State,
What Bugbear Dreams to fright thee after Fate?
No Ghoft, no Goblins, that ftill paffage keep,
But all is there ferene, in that eternal Sleep.
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
But fear of Chance on Earth disturbs our easie hours:
Or vain imagin'd Wrath, of vain imagin'd Pow'rs.
No Tityus torn by Vultures lies in Hell;
Nor cou'd the Lobes of his rank Liver fwell
To that prodigious Mass, 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 Gyants
floor.

Nor in eternal Torments could he lye ;

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 Sifyphus is he, whom noife and ftrife
Seduce from all the foft retreats of Life,
To vex the Government, difturb the Laws,
Drunk with the Fumes of popular applause,
He courts the giddy Croud to make him great,
And sweats and toils in vain, to mount the fovereign'
For ftill to aim at pow'r, and still to fail,
Ever to ftrive, and never to prevail,
What is it, but in Reason's true account

[Sear.

To heave the Stone against the rifing Mount;
Which urg'd, and labour'd, and forc'd up with pain,
Recoils, and rouls impetuous down, and smoaks a→
long the plain.

Then ftill to treat thy ever craving Mind
With ev'ry Bleffing, and of ev'ry kind,
Yet never fill thy rav'ning appetite,

Though Years and Seafons vary thy delight,,
Yet nothing to be seen 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 Sex, which none could ever fill
As for the Dog, the Furies, and their Snakes,
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 Mischiefs due :
Racks, Prifons, Poifons, the Tarpeian Rock,
Stripes, Hangmen, Pitch, and fuffocating Smoak,
And last, and moft, if these were caft behind,
Th' avenging horrour of a Conscious Mind,
Whofe deadly fear anticipates the blow,
And fees no end of Punishment and Woe: