Too well thou show'st thy Pedigree from Stone:

Thy Grandames was the first by Pyrrha thrown:

Unworthy thou to be so long desir'd ;
But so my Love, and so my Fate requir'd. 40
I beg not now (for 'tis in vain) to live;
But take this gift, the last that I can give.
This friendly Cord shall soon decide the
strife

Betwixt my ling'ring Love and loathsome life:

This moment puts an end to all my pain;
I shall no more despair, nor thou disdain.
Farewel, ungrateful and unkind! I go
Condemn'd by thee to those sad shades
below.

I go th' extreamest remedy to prove,
To drink Oblivion, and to drench my Love:
There happily to lose my long desires : 51
But ah, what draught so deep to quench my

Fires?

A weighty Stone (the labour of a Team) 90 And rais'd from thence he reach'd the Neighbouring Beam:

Around its bulk a sliding knot he throws, And fitted to his Neck the fatal noose: Then spurning backward, took a swing, 'till death

Crept up, and stopp'd the passage of his Breath.

The bounce burst ope the door; the Scornful Fair

Relentless lookt, and saw him beat his quivering feet in Air,

Nor wept his fate, nor cast a pitying eye, Nor took him down, but brusht regardless by:

And, as she pass'd, her chance or fate was such,

100

Her Garments toucht the dead, polluted by the touch.

Next to the dance, thence to the Bath did move;

The bath was sacred to the God of Love; Whose injur'd Image, with a wrathful Eye, Stood threatning from a Pedestal on high: Nodding a while, and watchful of his blow, He fell; and falling crusht th' ungrateful Nymph below:

Her gushing Blood the Pavement all besmear'd;

And this her last expiring Voice was heard; Lovers, farewell, revenge has reacht my

20

For Nature wisely stints our appetite, And craves no more than undisturb'd delight:

Which minds unmix'd with cares, and fears, obtain ;

A Soul serene, a body void of pain.
So little this corporeal frame requires ;
So bounded are our natural desires,
That wanting all, and setting pain aside,
With bare privation sence is satisfied.
If Golden Sconces hang not on the Walls,
To light the costly Suppers and the Balls;
If the proud Palace shines not with the
state
30
Of burnish'd Bowls, and of reflected Plate;
If well tun'd Harps, nor the more pleasing
sound

Of Voices, from the vaulted roofs rebound;
Yet on the grass, beneath a poplar shade,
By the cool stream our careless limbs are
lay'd;

With cheaper pleasures innocently bless'd, When the warm Spring with gaudy flow'rs is dress'd.

Nor will the rageing Feavours fire abate, With Golden Canopies and Beds of State: But the poor Patient will as soon be sound 40 On the hard mattrass, or the Mother ground. Then since our Bodies are not eas'd the

As little can relieve the lab'ring mind: Unless we could suppose the dreadful sight Of marshall'd Legions moving to the fight, Cou'd, with their sound and terrible array, Expel our fears, and drive the thoughts of death away;

But, since the supposition vain appears, 50 Since clinging cares, and trains of inbred fears,

Are not with sounds to be affrighted thence, But in the midst of Pomp pursue the Prince,

Not aw'd by arms, but in the presence bold,

Without respect to Purple, or to Gold; Why shou'd not we these pageantries despise ;

Whose worth but in our want of reason lies ?

For life is all in wandring errours led; And just as Children are surpriz'd with dread,

And tremble in the dark, so riper years 60 Ev'n in broad daylight are possest with fears;

And shake at shadows fanciful and vain, As those which in the breasts of Children reign.

These bugbears of the mind, this inward Hell,

No rayes of outward sunshine can dispel ; But nature and right reason must display Their beames abroad, and bring the darksome soul to day.

Man,

If Souls can die, as well as Bodies can ?
For, as before our Birth we felt no Pain,
When Punique arms infested Land and Main,
When Heaven and Earth were in confusion
hurl'd,

For the debated Empire of the World,
Which aw'd with dreadful expectation lay,
Sure to be Slaves, uncertain who shou'd
sway:

So, when our mortal frame shall be disjoyn'd, The lifeless Lump uncoupled from the mind, From sense of grief and pain we shall be free; II We shall not feel, because we shall not Be. Though Earth in Seas, and Seas in Heav'n were lost,

We shou'd not move, we only shou'd be tost. Nay, ev'n suppose when we have suffer'd Fate,

The Soul cou'd feel, in her divided state, What's that to us? for we are only we While Souls and Bodies in one frame agree. Nay, tho' ourAtoms shou'd revolve by chance, And matter leape into the former dance; 20 Tho' time our life and motion cou'd restore, And make our Bodies what they were before, What gain to us wou'd all this bustle bring? The new-made Man wou'd be another thing; When once an interrupting pause is made, That individual Being is decay'd.

We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part

In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart, Which to that other Mortal shall accrew, Whom, of our Matter Time shall mould

For whosoe're shall in misfortunes live, Must Be, when those misfortunes shall arrive; And since 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 pause of life has come between,

'Tis just the same as we had never been. And therefore if a Man bemoan his lot, That after death his mouldring limbs shall rot, 50 Or flames, or jaws of Beasts devour his Mass, Know, he's an unsincere, unthinking Ass. A secret Sting remains within his mind, The fool is to his own cast offals kind. He boasts no sense can after death remain Yet makes himself a part of life again; As if some other He could feel the pain. If, while he live, this Thought molest his head,

60

What Wolf or Vulture shall devour me dead,
He wasts his days in idle grief, nor can
Distinguish 'twixt the Body and the Man ;
But thinks himself can still himself survive :
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're his senseless Carcass to lament.

If after death 'tis painful to be torn
By Birds and Beasts, then why not so to
burn,

Or drench'd in floods of honey to be soak'd, Imbalm'd to be at once preserv'd and choak’d;

71

Or on an ayery Mountains top to lie,
Expos'd to cold and Heav'ns inclemency;
Or crowded in a Tomb to be opprest
With Monumental Marble on thy breast?
But to be snatch'd from all the household
joys,

From thyChast Wife, and thy dear prattling
Boys,

Whose little arms about thy Legs are cast, And climbing for a Kiss prevent their Mothers hast,

Inspiring secret pleasure thro' thy Breast, All these shall be no more: Thy Friends opprest 81

Thy Care and Courage now no more shall free;

Ah Wretch ! thou cry'st, ah! miserable me ; One woful day sweeps children, friends, and wife,

And all the brittle blessings of my life! Add one thing more, and all thou say'st is true;

Thy want and wish of them is vanish'd too: Which, well consider'd, were a quick relief, To all thy vain imaginary grief.

For thou shalt sleep, and never wake again, And, quitting life, shalt quit thy living pain. 91

But we, thy friends, shall all those sorrows find,

Which in forgetful death thou leav'st behind;

No time shall dry our tears, nor drive thee from our mind.

The worst that can befall thee, measur'd right,

Is a sound slumber, 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, 100 They whine, and cry, Let us make haste to live,

Shortare the joys that humane 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 desire as vain as these.
For, e'en in sleep, the body, wrapt in ease,
Supinely lies, as in the peaceful grave,
And wanting nothing, nothing can it crave.
Were that sound sleep eternal, it were
death;
III
Yet the first Atoms then, the seeds of breath,

Are moving near to sense; we do but shake And rouze that sense, and straight we are awake.

Then death to us, and deaths anxiety,
Is less than nothing, if a less could be.
For then our Atoms, which in order lay,
Are scatter'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.

120

And last, suppose Great Natures Voice shou'd call

To thee, or me, or any of us all, What dost thou mean, ungrateful Wretch, thou vain,

Thou mortal thing, thus idly to complain, And sigh and sob, that thou shalt be no more ?

For if thy Life were pleasant heretofore, If all the bounteous Blessings, I cou'd give, Thou hast enjoy'd, if thou hast known to live,

And Pleasure not leak'd through thee like a Seive,

Why dost thou not give thanks as at a plenteous feast,

130 Cram'd to the throat with life, and rise

and take thy rest?

But if my blessings thou hast thrown away, If indigested joys pass'd thro', and wou'd