| |
| WHAT has this Bugbear Death to frighten 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| From sense of grief and pain we shall be free; | |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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’ our Atoms 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, | 25 |
| 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 anew. | 30 |
| For backward if you look, on that long space | |
| Of Ages past, and view the changing face | |
| Of Matter, tost and variously combin’d | |
| In sundry shapes, ’tis easie for the mind | |
| From thence t’ infer, that Seeds of things have been | 35 |
| In the same order as they now are seen: | |
| Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace, | |
| Because a pause of Life, a gaping space, | |
| Has come betwixt, where memory lies dead, | |
| And all the wandring motions from the sense are fled. | 40 |
| 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) | 45 |
| 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; | 55 |
| 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, | |
| What Wolf or Vulture shall devour me dead, | |
| He wasts his days in idle grief, nor can | 60 |
| 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, | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| Imbalm’d to be at once preserv’d and choak’d; | |
| 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? | 75 |
| But to be snatch’d from all the household joys, | |
| From thy Chast 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, | 80 |
| All these shall be no more: Thy Friends opprest | |
| 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! | 85 |
| 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, | 90 |
| And, quitting life, shalt quit thy living pain. | |
| 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, | 95 |
| 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, | |
| Short are 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 | 105 |
| 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. | 110 |
| Were that sound sleep eternal, it were death; | |
| 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, | 115 |
| 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? | 125 |
| 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 not stay, | |
| Why dost thou wish for more to squander still? | |
| If Life be grown a load, a real ill, | 135 |
| And I wou’d all thy cares and labours end, | |
| Lay down thy burden fool, and know thy friend. | |
| To please thee, I have empti’d all my store, | |
| I can invent, and can supply no more; | |
| But run the round again, the round I ran before. | 140 |
| Suppose thou art not broken yet with years, | |
| Yet still the self same Scene of things appears, | |
| And wou’d be ever, coud’st thou ever live; | |
| For Life is still but Life, there’s nothing new to give. | |
| What can we plead against so just a Bill? | 145 |
| We stand convicted, and our cause goes ill. | |
| But if a wretch, a man opprest by fate, | |
| Shou’d beg of Nature to prolong his date, | |
| She speaks aloud to him with more disdain, | |
| Be still, thou Martyr fool, thou covetous of pain. | 150 |
| But if an old decrepit Sot lament; | |
| What thou (She cryes) who hast outliv’d content! | |
| Dost thou complain, who hast enjoy’d my store? | |
| But this is still th’ effect of wishing more. | |
| Unsatisfy’d with all that Nature brings; | 155 |
| Loathing the present, liking absent things; | |
| From hence it comes, thy vain desires, at strife | |
| Within themselves, have tantaliz’d thy Life. | |
| And ghastly death appear’d before thy sight, | |
| E’re thou hadst gorg’d thy Soul & Senses with delight. | 160 |
| Now leave those joys, unsuiting to thy age, | |
| To a fresh Comer, and resign the Stage; | |
| Is Nature to be blam’d if thus she chide? | |
| No sure; for ’tis her business to provide | |
| Against this ever-changing Frames decay, | 165 |
| New things to come, and old to pass away. | |
| One Being, worn, another Being makes; | |
| Chang’d, but not lost; for Nature gives and takes: | |
| New Matter must be found for things to come, | |
| And these must waste like those, and follow Natures doom. | 170 |
| All things, like thee, have time to rise and rot; | |
| And from each other’s ruin are begot: | |
| For Life is not confin’d to him or thee: | |
| ’Tis giv’n to all for use, to none for Property. | |
| Consider former Ages past and gone, | 175 |
| Whose Circles ended long ere thine begun, | |
| Then tell me Fool, what part in them thou hast? | |
| Thus may’st thou judge the future by the past. | |
| What horrour seest thou in that quiet state, | |
| What Bugbear Dreams to fright thee after Fate? | 180 |
| No Ghost, no Gobblins, that still passage keep; | |
| But all is there serene, in that eternal Sleep. | |
| For all the dismal Tales that Poets tell, | |
| Are verify’d on Earth, and not in Hell. | |
| No Tantalus looks up with fearful eye, | 185 |
| Or dreads th’ impending Rock to crush him from on high: | |
| 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 swell | 190 |
| To that prodigious Mass, for their eternal meal: | |
| Not tho’ his monstrous Bulk had cover’d o’re | |
| Nine spreading Acres, or nine thousand more; | |
| Not tho’ the Globe of earth had been the Gyants floor | |
| Nor in eternal torments could he lie: | 195 |
| Nor could his Corps sufficient food supply. | |
| But he’s the Tityus, who by love opprest, | |
| Or Tyrant Passion preying on his breast, | |
| And ever anxious Thoughts, is robb’d of rest. | |
| The Sisiphus is he, whom noise and strife | 200 |
| Seduce from all the soft retreats of life, | |
| 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 & toils in vain, to mount the sovereign Seat. | 205 |
| For still to aim at Pow’r and still to fail, | |
| Ever to strive, and never to prevail, | |
| What is it, but, in reason’s true account | |
| To heave the Stone against the rising Mount? | |
| Which urg’d, and labour’d, and forc’d up with pain, | 210 |
| Recoils, & rowls impetuous down, and smoaks along the plain. | |
| Then still to treat thy ever-craving mind | |
| With ev’ry blessing, and of ev’ry kind, | |
| Yet never fill thy rav’ning appetite; | |
| Though years and seasons vary thy delight, | 215 |
| Yet nothing to be seen of all the store, | |
| But still the Wolf within thee barks for more; | |
| This is the Fables Moral, which they tell | |
| Of fifty foolish Virgins damn’d in Hell | |
| To leaky Vessels, which the Liquor spill; | 220 |
| To Vessels of their Sex, which none cou’d 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’re can be. | 225 |
| But here on Earth, the guilty have in view | |
| The mighty Pains to mighty mischiefs due; | |
| Racks, Prisons, Poisons, the Tarpeian Rock, | |
| Stripes, Hangmen, Pitch, and suffocating Smoak; | |
| And last, and most, if these were cast behind, | 230 |
| Th’ avenging horrour of a Conscious mind, | |
| Whose deadly fear anticipates the blow, | |
| And sees 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. | 235 |
| Mean time when thoughts of death disturb thy head; | |
| Consider, Ancus great and good is dead; | |
| Ancus thy better far, was born to die; | |
| And thou, dost thou bewail mortality? | |
| So many Monarchs with their mighty State, | 240 |
| Who rul’d the World, were over-rul’d by fate. | |
| That haughty King, who lorded o’re the Main, | |
| And whose stupendous Bridge did the wild Waves restrain, | |
| (In vain they foam’d, in vain they threatned wreck, | |
| While his proud Legions march’d upon their back:) | 245 |
| Him death, a greater Monarch, overcame; | |
| Nor spar’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 Slave, by fate in triumph led. | 250 |
| The Founders of invented Arts are lost; | |
| And Wits who made Eternity their boast. | |
| Where now is Homer, who possest the Throne? | |
| Th’ immortal Work remains, the mortal 1 Author’s gone. | |
| Democritus, perceiving age invade, | 255 |
| His Body weakn’d, and his mind decay’d, | |
| Obey’d the summons with a cheerful face; | |
| Made hast to welcom death, and met him half the race. | |
| That stroke ev’n Epicurus cou’d not bar, | |
| Though he in Wit surpass’d Mankind, as far | 260 |
| As does the midday Sun the midnight Star. | |
| And thou, dost thou disdain to yield thy breath, | |
| Whose very Life is little more than Death? | |
| More than one half by Lazy sleep possest; | |
| And when awake, thy Soul but nods at best, | 265 |
| Day-Dreams and sickly thoughts revolving in thy breast. | |
| Eternal troubles haunt thy anxious mind, | |
| Whose cause and cure thou never hop’st to find; | |
| But still uncertain, with thyself at strife, | |
| Thou wander’st in the Labyrinth of Life. | 270 |
| O! if the foolish race of man, who find | |
| A weight of cares still pressing on their mind, | |
| Cou’d find as well the cause of this unrest, | |
| And all this burden lodg’d within the breast; | |
| Sure they wou’d change their course, nor live as now, | 275 |
| Uncertain what to wish or what to vow. | |
| Uneasie both in Countrey and in Town, | |
| They search a place to lay their burden down. | |
| One, restless in his Palace, walks abroad, | |
| And vainly thinks to leave behind the load: | 280 |
| But straight returns; for he’s as restless there: | |
| And finds there’s no relief in open Air. | |
| Another to his Villa wou’d retire, | |
| And spurs as hard as if it were on fire | |
| No sooner enter’d at his Country door, | 285 |
| But he begins to stretch, and yawn, and snore; | |
| Or seeks the City which he left before. | |
| Thus every man o’re works his weary Will, | |
| To shun himself, and to shake off his ill: | |
| The shaking Fit returns, and hangs upon him still. | 290 |
| No prospect of repose, nor hope of ease; | |
| The Wretch is ignorant of his disease; | |
| Which known wou’d all his fruitless trouble spare; | |
| For he wou’d know the World not worth his care; | |
| Then wou’d he search more deeply for the cause; | 295 |
| And study Nature well, and Natures Laws: | |
| For in this moment lies not the debate, | |
| But on our future, fix’d Eternal State; | |
| That never changing state, which all must keep, | |
| Whom Death has doom’d to everlasting sleep. | 300 |
| Why are we then so fond of mortal Life, | |
| Beset with dangers, and maintain’d with strife? | |
| A Life, which all our care can never save; | |
| One Fate attends us; and one common Grave. | |
| Besides, we tread but a perpetual round; | 305 |
| We ne’re strike out, but beat the former ground, | |
| And the same Maukish joyes in the same track are found. | |
| For still we think an absent blessing best, | |
| Which cloys, and is no blessing when possest; | |
| A new arising wish expells it from the Breast. | 310 |
| The Feav’rish thirst of Life increases still; | |
| We call for more and more, and never have our fill; | |
| Yet know not what to-morrow we shall try, | |
| What dregs of life in the last draught may lie: | |
| Nor, by the longest life we can attain, | 315 |
| One moment from the length of death we gain; | |
| For all behind belongs to his Eternal reign. | |
| When once the Fates have cut the mortal Thred, | |
| The Man as much to all intents is dead, | |
| Who dyes to day, and will as long be so, | 320 |
| As he who dy’d a thousand years ago. | |
