Thoughtlefs of death, but when your neighbour's knell
(Rude vifitant) knocks hard at your dull sense,
And with its thunder fcarce obtains your ear!
Be death your theme in ev'ry place and hour;
Nor longer want, ye monumental Sires,
A brother tomb to tell you you shall die.
That death you dread (to great is Nature's skill !)
Know you fhall court before you fhall enjoy.
But you are learn'd; in volumes deep you fit, 735 In wifdom fhallow. Pompous ignorance! Would you be ftill more learned than the learn'd ? Learn well to know how much need not be known, And what that knowledge which impairs your fenfe. Our needful knowledge, like our needful food, Unhedg'd, lies open in life's common field, And bids all welcome to the vital feaft. You fcorn what lies before you in the page Of Nature and Experience, moral truth;
Of indifpenfible eternal fruit,
Fruit on which mortals feeding turn to gods;
And dive in fcience for diftinguish'd names,
Dishonest fomentation of your pride,
Sinking in virtue as you rife in fame.
Your learning, like the lunar beam, affords
Light, but not heat, it leaves you undevout,
Frozen at heart, while fpeculation fhines.
Awake, ye curious Indagators, fond
Of knowing all but what avails you known.
If you would learn Death's character, attend.
All cafts of conduct, all degrees of health,
All dyes of fortune, and all dates of age,
Together fhook in his impartial urn,
Come forth at random; or, if choice is made,
The choice is quite farcaftic, and infults
All bold conjecture and fond hopes of man.
What countless multitudes not only leave,
But deeply disappoint us by their deaths!
Tho' great our forrow, greater our furprise.
Like other tyrants, Death delights to fmite
What, fmitten, moft proclaims the pride of power
And arbitrary nod. His joy fupreme
To bid the wretch furvive the fortunate;
The feeble wrap th' athletic in his shroud;
And weeping fathers build their children's tomb :
Me thine! Narciffa. What, though short thy date?
Virtue, not rolling funs, the mind matures.
That life is long which anfwers life's great end.
The time that bears no fruit deferves no name.
The man of wifdom is the man of years.
In hoary youth Methufalems may die :
O how mifdated on their flatt'ring tombs!
Narciffa's youth has lectur'd me thus far:
And can her gaiety give counsel too?
That, like the Jews' fam'd oracle of gems,
Sparkles inftruction; fuch as throws new light,
And opens more the character of Death,
Ill known to thee, Lorenzo! this thy vaunt!
"Give Death his due, the wretched and the old ;
"E'en let him fweep his rubbish to the grave;
"Let him not violate kind Nature's laws,
"But own man born to live as well as die."
Wretched and old thou giv'it him; young and gay
He takes; and plunder is a tyrant's joy.
What if I prove, "the fartheft from the fear
"Are often nearest to the ftroke of fate ?"
All more than common menaces an end.
A blaze betokens brevity of life.
As if bright embers should emit a flame,
Glad fpirits fparkled from Narciffa's eye,
And made Youth younger, and taught Life to live.
As Nature's oppofites wage endless war,
For this offence, as treafon to the deep
Inviolable ftupor of his reign,
Where luft and turbulent ambition fleep,
Death took fwift vengeance. As he life detefts,
More life is ftill more odious; and, reduced
By conqueft, aggrandizes more his power.
But wherefore aggrandized? By heaven's decree
To plant the foul on her eternal guard,
In awful expectation of our end.
Thus runs Death's dread commiffion; "Strike, but fo
“As most alarms the living by the dead.”
Hence fratagem delights him, and furprise,
And cruel fport with man's fecurities.
Not fimple conqueft, triumph is his aim ;
And where leat fear'd, there conqueft triumphs met.
This proves my bold affertion not too bold.
What are his arts to lay our fears afleep?
Tiberian arts his purposes wrap up
In deep Diffimulation's darkest night.
Like princes unconfefs'd in foreign courts,
Who travel under cover, Death affumes
The name and look of Life, and dwells among us:
He takes all shapes that ferve his black defigns: 820
Tho' mafter of a wider empire far
Than that o'er which the Roman Eagle flew.
Like Nero, he's a fiddler, charioteer;
Or drives his phaeton in female guife;
Quite unfufpected, till the wheel beneath
His difarray'd oblation he devours.
He most affects the forms least like himself,
His flender felf: hence burly corpulence
Is his familiar wear, and fleek difguife.
Behind the rofy bloom he loves to lurk;
Or ambush in a fimile; or, wanton, dive
In dimples deep; Love's eddies, which draw in
Unwary hearts, and fink them in despair.
Such on Narciffa's couch he loiter'd long
Unknown, and, when detected, ftill was feen
To fimile: fuch peace has innocence in death!
Moft happy they whom leaft his arts deceive!
One eye on death, and one full fix'd on heaven,
Becomes a mortal and immortal man.
Long on his wiles a piqu'd and jealous spy,
I've feen, or dreamt I law, the tyrant drefs,
Lay by his horrors, and put on his finiles.
Say, Mufe, for thou remember'ft, call it back,
And fhew Lorenzo the furprising scene;
If 'twas a drean, his genius can explain.
'Twas in a circle of the gay I stood :
Death would have enter'd; Nature push'd him back :
Supported by a doctor of renown,
His point he gain'd; then artfully difmifs'd
The fage; for Death defign'd to be conceal'd:
He gave an old vivacious ufurer
His meagre afpect, and his naked bones,
In gratitude for plumping up his prey,
A pamper'd spendthrift, whofe fantastic air,
Well-fashion'd figure, and cockaded brow,
He took in change, and underneath the pride
Of coftly linen, tuck'd his filthy shroud.
His crooked bow he ftraighten'd to a cane,
And hid his deadly fhafts in Myra's eye.
The dreadful mafquerader, thus equipp'd,
Out fallies on adventures. Ask you where?
Where is he not? For his peculiar haunts
Let this fuffice: fure as night follows day,
Death treads in Pleafure's footsteps round the world, When Pleasure treads the paths which Reafon fhuns. When against Reafon Riot fhuts the door,
And Gaiety fupplies the place of Senfe,
Then, foremost at the banquet and the ball,
Death leads the dance, or ftamps the deadly dye,
Nor ever fails the midnight bowl to crown.
Gaily caroufing to his gay compeers,
Inly he laughs to fee them laugh at him,
As abfent far; and when the revel burns,
When Fear is banish'd, and triumphant Thought,
Calling for all the joys beneath the moon,
Against him turns the key, and bids him fup
With their progenitors-he drops his mask,
Frowns out at full; they start-defpair-expire.
Scarce with more fudden terror and surprise,
From his black mask of nitre, touch'd by fire,
He burfts, expands, roars, blazes, and devours.
And is not this triumphant treachery,
And more than fimple conquest, in the fiend ?
And now, Lorenzo, doft thou wrap thy foul
In foft fecurity, because unknown
Which moment is commiffion'd to destroy?
In death's uncertainty thy danger lies.
Is death uncertain? therefore thou be fix'd,
Fix'd as a centinel, all eye, all ear,
All expectation of the coming foe.
Rouse, stand in arms, nor lean against thy fpear,
Left flumbers fteal one moment o'er thy foul,
And Fate furprise thee nodding. Watch; be ftrong;
Thus give each day the merit and renown
Of dying well, though doom'd but once to die: 895
Nor let life's period, hidden, (as from most)
Hide, too, from thee the precious ufe of life.
Early, not fudden, was Narciffa's fate:
Soon, not surprising, Death his vifit paid :
Her thought went forth to meet him on his way, 900
Nor gaiety forgot it was to die.
Tho' fortune, too, (our third and final theme)
As an accomplice, play'd her gaudy plumes,
And ev'ry glitt'ring gewgaw on her fight,
To dazzle and debauch it from its mark.
Death's dreadful advent is the mark of man,
And ev'ry thought that miffes it is blind.
Fortune with Youth and Gaiety confpir'd
To weave a triple wreath of happiness,
(If happiness on earth) to crown her brow:
And could Death charge through such a shining shield ? That fhining fhield invites the tyrant's fpear,
As if to damp our elevated aims,
And strongly preach humility to man.
how portentous is profperity!
How, comet-like, it threatens while it fhines !
Few years but yield us proof of Death's ambition
To cull his victims from the fairest fold,
And fheath his fhafts in all the pride of life.
When flooded with abundance; purpled o'er
The gaudy centre of the public eye:
With recent honours; bloom'd with ev'ry blifs;
Set up in oftentation; made the gaze,
When Fortune, thus, has tofs'd her child in air,
Snatch'd from the covert of an humble ftate,
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