On Life, Death, and Immortality.
9
What Numbers groan for sad Admission there!
What Numbers, once in Fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold Hand of Charity!
To shock us more, solicit it in vain!
Ye silken Sons of Pleasure! since in Pains
You rue more modish Visits, visit here,
And breathe from your Debauch: Give, and reduce
Surfeit's Dominion o'er you: But so great
Your Impudence, you blush at what is Right.
Happy! did Sorrow seize on such alone.
Not Prudence can defend, or Virtue save;
Disease invades the chastest Temperance;
And Punishment the Guiltless; and Alarm,
Thro' thickest shades, pursues the fond of Peace.
Man's Caution often into Danger turns,
And his Guard falling, crushes him to Death.
Not Happiness itself makes good her Name;
Our very Wishes give us not our Wish.
How distant oft the Thing we doat on most,
From that for which we doat, Felicity?
The smoothest Course of Nature has its Pains;
And truest Friends, thro' Error, wound our Rest.
Without Misfortune, what Calamities?
And what Hostilities, without a Foe!
Nor are Foes wanting to the best on Earth.
But endless is the List of human Ills,
And Sighs might sooner fail, than Cause to sigh.
A Part how small of the terraqueous Globe
Is tenanted by Man! the rest a Waste,
Rocks, Desarts, frozen Seas, and burning Sands!
Wild Haunts of Monsters, Poisons, Stings, and Death.
Such is Earth's melancholy Map! But, far
More sad! this Earth is a true Map of Man.
So bounded are its haughty Lord's Delights
To Woe's wide Empire; where deep Troubles toss,
What Numbers, once in Fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold Hand of Charity!
To shock us more, solicit it in vain!
Ye silken Sons of Pleasure! since in Pains
You rue more modish Visits, visit here,
And breathe from your Debauch: Give, and reduce
Surfeit's Dominion o'er you: But so great
Your Impudence, you blush at what is Right.
Happy! did Sorrow seize on such alone.
Not Prudence can defend, or Virtue save;
Disease invades the chastest Temperance;
And Punishment the Guiltless; and Alarm,
Thro' thickest shades, pursues the fond of Peace.
Man's Caution often into Danger turns,
And his Guard falling, crushes him to Death.
Not Happiness itself makes good her Name;
Our very Wishes give us not our Wish.
How distant oft the Thing we doat on most,
From that for which we doat, Felicity?
The smoothest Course of Nature has its Pains;
And truest Friends, thro' Error, wound our Rest.
Without Misfortune, what Calamities?
And what Hostilities, without a Foe!
Nor are Foes wanting to the best on Earth.
But endless is the List of human Ills,
And Sighs might sooner fail, than Cause to sigh.
A Part how small of the terraqueous Globe
Is tenanted by Man! the rest a Waste,
Rocks, Desarts, frozen Seas, and burning Sands!
Wild Haunts of Monsters, Poisons, Stings, and Death.
Such is Earth's melancholy Map! But, far
More sad! this Earth is a true Map of Man.
So bounded are its haughty Lord's Delights
To Woe's wide Empire; where deep Troubles toss,
Loud
