Page:The Poetical Works of Elijah Fenton (1779).djvu/96

$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$Ev'n with our nourishment we death receive;
For here our guiltless mothers give
Poison for food when first we live.
Hence noisome humours^[1] sweat thro' ev'ry pore, 25
And blot us with an undistinguish'd sore:
Nor, mov'd with beauty, will the dire disease
Forbear on faultless forms to seize;
But vindicates the good, the gay,
The wife, the young, its common prey. 30
Had all, conjoin'd in one, had pow'r to save,
The Muses had not wept o'er Blandford's grave.

IV.
The spark of pure ethereal light
That actuates this fleeting frame,
Darts thro' the cloud of flesh a sickly flame, 35
And seems a glow-worm in a winter-night.
But man would yet look wondrous wise,
And equal chains of thought devise;
Intends his mind on mighty schemes,
Refutes, defines, confirms, declaims; 40
And diagrams he draws, t' explain
The learn'd chimeras of his brain;
And, with imaginary wisdom proud,
Thinks on the goddess while he clips the cloud.

V.
Thro' Error's mazy-grove, with fruitless toil, 45
Perplex'd with puzzling doubts, we roam;

1. The small-pox.