Life, ills substantial, wisdom cannot shun.

*

*

Life's a debtor to the grave,

Dark lattice! letting in eternal day.

p. 70.

Then, welcome death! thy dreaded harbingers,
Age and disease; disease, though long my guest;
That plucks my nerves, those tender strings of life;
Which, pluck'd a little more, will toll* the bell,
That calls my few friends to my funeral;
Where feeble nature drops, perhaps, a tear,
While reason and religion, better taught,'
Congratulate the dead.

Birth's feeble cry, and death's deep, dismal groan,
Are slender tributes low-taxt nature pays

For mighty gain: The gain of each, a life!

But,

the last, the former so transcends,

Life dies, compar'd! Life lives beyond the grave.

When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?

When shall I die? When shall I live forever?

p. 72.

The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave; The deep, damp vault, the darkness, and the worm; These are the bugbears of a winter's eve,

The terrors of the living, not the dead.

* The bell did not toll at the author's funeral, nor was any one allowed to be drest in mourning; no doubt these ceremonies were omitted pursuant to his request.

Flaws in the best; the many, flaw all o'er;
As Leopards, spotted, or, as Ethiops, dark;

I scarce can meet a monument, but holds
My younger; every date cries—“come away."
A time there is, when, like a thrice told tale,
And that of no great moment, or delight,
Long-rifled life of sweet can yield no more.

p. 74.

Alas! Ambition makes my little, less;
Embitt'ring the possess'd: why wish for more;
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst ;
Philosophy's reverse; and health's decay!
Were I as plump, as stall'd theology,
Wishing would waste me to this shade again.
Were as wealthy as a south-sea dream,
Wishing is an expedient to be poor.
Wishing, that constant hectic of a fool;

Caught at a court; purg'd off by purer air,
And simpler diet; gifts of rural life!

posterity shall know

p. 76.

One (tho' in Britain born, with courtiers bred) Who thought e'en gold might come a day too late;

Nor on his death-bed plann'd his scheme

For future vacancies in church or state;

*

O my coevals! Remnants of ourselves!
Poor human ruins, tott'ring o'er the grave!
Shall we, shall aged Men, like aged trees,

Strike deeper their vile root, and closer cling,
Still more enamour'd of this wretched soil?
Shall our pale, wither'd hands, be still stretch'd out,
Trembling, at once, with eagerness and age?
With av❜rice and convulsions, grasping hard?
Grasping at air! for what has earth beside?
Man wants but little; nor that little, long;
How soon must he resign his very dust,

Which frugal Nature lent him for an hour! p. 77.

And am I fond of life,

Who scarce can think it possible, I live,

Who long have bury'd what gives life to live,
Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought.

Thy call I follow to the land unknown;
I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust;
Or life or death, is equal; neither weighs;
All weight in this-O let me live to thee!

*

Ye brainless wits! Ye baptiz'd infidels!

Ye worse for mending! wash'd to fouler stains! p. 81.

Religion Providence! an after state;
Here is firm footing; here is solid rock;

This can support us; all is sea besides ;

Sinks under us; bestorms, and then devours. p. 92.

For ever lie

Entomb'd my fear of Death! and ev'ry fear,
The dread of ev'ry evil, but thy frown.

p. 94.

Oh! when will death (now stingless) like a friend, This mould'ring, old, partition-wall throw down! Give beings, one in Nature, one abode ?

*

'Tis impious, in a good man, to be sad.*

Talk they of morals, O thou bleeding Love,

Thou maker of new morals to mankind;

The grand morality is love of thee.

*

A Christian is the highest style of man.
And is there, who the blessed cross wipes off,
As a foul blot, from his dishonour'd brow?

If angels tremble, 'tis at such a sight:

*

Ye sold to sense! Ye. Citizens of earth!

(For such alone the Christian banner fly.) p. 99.

Dark Dæmons I discharge, and Hydra-stings :
The keen vibration of bright truth --is Hell:
Just definition! tho' by schools untaught.

"Men

may live fools, but fools they cannot die."

p.101.

* It is presumed the author did not mean to admit by this, that a good man need not be sober, solid, and grave in his, deportment, but only that it was not justifiable to sorrow over much, or be unprofitably dejected.

Fondness of fame is avarice of air.

I grant the man is vain, who writes for praise.
Praise no man e'er deserv'd, who sought no more.

Virtue, for ever frail, as fair, below,

Her tender nature suffers in the crowd,

P. 102.

Nor touches, on the world without a stain:
The world's infectious; few bring back at eve,
Immaculate, the manners of the morn.

Something we thought, is blotted; we resolv'd,
Is shaken; we renounc'd, returns again.

p. 107.

We see, we hear, with peril; safety dwells
Remote from multitude; the world's a school
Of wrong, and what proficients swarm around!
We must or imitate or disapprove;

Must list as their accomplices, or foes;

That stains our innocence; this wounds our peace. From Nature's birth, hence, wisdom has been smit With sweet recess, and languish'd for the shade.

p. 108.

What are we? How unequal! Now we soar,
And now we sink; to be the same, transcends
Our present prowess.

p. 109.

Grief! more proficients in thy school are made,
Than genius, or proud learning e'er could boast.

p. 110.

But Wisdom smiles, when humbled mortals weep. When sorrow wounds the breast, as ploughs the glebe,