Which gives thee to repose in festive bowers,
Where nectars sparkle, angels minister,

And more than angels share, and raise, and crown,
And eternize, the birth, bloom, bursts of bliss.
What need I more?-O Death! the palm is thine.

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, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory;
It binds in chains the raging ills of life:
Lust and Ambition, Wrath and Avarice,
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power.
That ills corrosive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O Death! is thine.
Our day of dissolution!—name it right,

"Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich

And ripe. What though the sickle, sometimes keen,

Just scars us as we reap the golden grain;

More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound.
Birth's feeble cry, and Death's deep dismal groan,
Are slender tributes low-tax'd Nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each a life!
But, O! the last the former so transcends,
Life dies compar'd; Life lives beyond the grave.
And feel I, Death! no joy from thought of thee?

With every nobler thought and fairer deed!
Death! the deliverer, who rescues man!

Death! the rewarder, who the rescued crowns!
Death! that absolves my birth, a curse without it!
Rich Death! that realizes all my cares,
Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera!
Death! of all pain the period, not of joy;
Joy's source and subject still subsist unhurt;
One in my soul, and one in her great sire,
Though the four winds were warring for my dust.
Yes, and from winds and waves, and central night,
Though prison'd there, my dust, too, I reclaim,
(To dust when drop proud Nature's proudest
spheres)

And live entire. Death is the crown of life:
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain:
Were death denied, to live would not be life:
Were death denied, ev'n fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure; we fall, we rise, we reign!
Spring from our fetters, fasten in the skies,
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight.
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost:
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When shall I die?-when shall I live for ever?

END OF NIGHT THIRD.

Which gives thee to repose in festive bowers,
Where nectars sparkle, angels minister,
And more than angels share, and raise, and crown,
And eternize, the birth, bloom, bursts of bliss.
What need I more?-O Death! the palm is thine

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, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory;
It binds in chains the raging ills of life:
Lust and Ambition, Wrath and Avarice,
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power
That ills corrosive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O Death! is thine.
Our day of dissolution!-name it right,
"Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich
And ripe. What though the sickle, sometime
keen,

Just scars us as we reap the golden grain;
More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound
Birth's feeble cry, and Death's deep dismal groan
Are slender tributes low-tax'd Nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each a life!
But, O! the last the former so transcends,
Life dies compar'd; Life lives beyond the grave
And feel I, Death! no joy from thought of thee

With every nobler thought and fairer deed!
Death! the deliverer, who rescues man!

Death! the rewarder, who the rescued crowns!
Death! that absolves my birth, a curse without it!
Rich Death! that realizes all my cares,
Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera!
Death! of all pain the period, not of joy;
Joy's source and subject still subsist unhurt;
One in my soul, and one in her great sire,
Though the four winds were warring for my dust.
Yes, and from winds and waves, and central night,
Though prison'd there, my dust, too, I reclaim,
(To dust when drop proud Nature's proudest
spheres)

And live entire. Death is the crown of life:
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain:
Were death denied, to live would not be life:
Were death denied, ev'n fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure; we fall, we rise, we reign!
Spring from our fetters, fasten in the skies,
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight.
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost:
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When shall I die?-when shall I live for ever?

END OF NIGHT THIRD.

THE

COMPLAINT.

NIGHT IV.

THE

CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH.

CONTAINING

THE ONLY CURE FOR THE FEAR OF DEATH, AND PROPER SENTIMENTS OF HEART ON THAT INESTIMABLE BLESSING.

INSCRIBED TO

THE HONOURABLE MR. YORKE.

A MUCH-INDEBTED muse, O Yorke! intrudes.
Amid the smiles of fortune and of youth,
Thine ear is patient of a serious song.
How deep implanted in the breast of man
The dread of death? I sing its sovereign cure.
Why start at Death? where is he? Death arriv'd,
Is past; not come, or gone; he's never here.
Ere hope, sensation fails. Black-boding man
Receives, not suffers, Death's tremendous blow.