To Memmius, under thy sweet influence born, Whom thou with all thy gifts and graces doft adorn. The rather then affist my Muse and me,
Infusing verses worthy him and thee.
Mean-time on land and fea let barb'rous difcord
And lull the liftning world, in univerfal peace.
To thee mankind their foft repofe muft owe;
For thou alone that bleffing canst bestow;
Because the brutal bufinefs of the war
Is manag'd by thy dreadful fervant's care;
Who oft retires from fighting fields, to prove
The pleafing pains of thy eternal love;
And, panting on thy breast, fupinely lies,
While with thy heavenly form he feeds his fa-
mifh'd eyes;
Sucks in with open lips thy balmy breath,
By turns reftor'd to life, and plung'd in pleafing death.
-There while thy curling limbs about him move,
Involv'd and fetter'd in the links of love,
When, wishing all, he nothing can deny,
Thy charms in that aufpicious moment try;
With winning eloquence our peace implore,
And quiet to the weary world restore.
IS pleasant, fafely to behold from shore
The rowling ship, and hear the tempest roar:
Not that another's pain is our delight;
But pains unfelt produce the pleafing fight.
'Tis pleasant also to behold from far
The moving legions mingled in the war.
But much more fweet thy lab'ring fteps to guide
To virtue's heights, with wifdom well fupply'd,
And all the magazines of learning fortify'd:
From thence to look below on human kind,
Bewilder'd in the maze of life, and blind:
To fee vain fools ambitiously contend
For wit and pow'r; their laft endeavours bend
T'outfhine each other, waste their time and health
In fearch of honor, and pursuit of wealth.
O wretched man! in what a mist of life,
Inclos'd with dangers and with noisy strife,
He spends his little fpan; and overfeeds ́
His cramm'd defires, with more than nature needs!
For nature wifely ftints our appetite,
And craves no more than undisturb'd'delight:
Which minds, unmix'd with cares and fears obtain;
A foul ferene, a body void of pain.
So little this corporeal frame requires ;
So bounded are our natural defires,
That wanting all, and fetting pain afide,
With bare privation sense is fatisfy'd.
If golden fconces hang not on the walls,
To light the costly suppers and the balls ;
If the proud palace shines not with the state
Of burnish'd bowls, and of reflected plate;
If well-tun'd harps, nor the more pleasing found
Of voices, from the vaulted roofs rebound;
Yet on the grafs, beneath a poplar fhade,
By the cool ftream, our careless limbs are lay'd;
With cheaper pleasures innocently bleft,
When the warm fpring with gaudy flow'rs is dreft.
Nor will the raging fever's fire abate,
With golden canopies and beds of state:
But the poor patient will as foon be found
On the hard mattress, or the mother ground.
Then fince our bodies are not eas'd the more
By birth, or pow'r, or fortune's wealthy ftore,
'Tis plain, these useless toys of every kind
As little can relieve the lab'ring mind:
Unless we could fuppofe the dreadful fight
Of marshal❜d legions moving to the fight,
Could, with their found and terrible array,
Expel our fears, and drive the thoughts of death
But, fince the fuppofition vain
appears, Since clinging cares, and trains of inbred fears, Are not with founds to be affrighted thence, But in the midst of pomp purfue the prince, Not aw'd by arms, but in the presence bold, Without refpect to purple, or to gold; Why should not we these pageantries defpife; Whose worth but in our want of reason lies? For life is all in wandring errors led; And just as children are furpriz'd with dread, And tremble in the dark, fo riper years E'en in broad day-light are poffefs'd with fears; And shake at fhadows fanciful and vain, As those which in the breafts of children reign. These bugbears of the mind, this inward hell, No rays of outward funfhine can difpel; But nature and right reafon must display Their beams abroad, and bring the darksome soul to-day.
Against the Fear of Death.
HAThas this bugbear death to frighten men,
If fouls can die, as well as bodies can?
For, as before our birth we felt no pain,
When Punic arms infefted land and main,
When Heav'n and earth were in confufion hurl'd
For the debated empire of the world,
Which aw'd with dreadful expectation lay,
Sure to be flaves, uncertain who should sway:
So, when our mortal flame fhall be disjoin'd,
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,
From fenfe of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not Be.
Tho earth in feas, and feas in Heav'n were loft,
We should not move, we only should be toft.
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