P 21

The descent of Man into the Vale of Death.

London Published May12808.br Cadell & Davies, Strand

Could scarce have leisure for; fools that we

are!

Never to think of Death and of ourselves

At the same time !—as if to learn to die

Were no concern of ours. O more than sottish!
For creatures of a day in gamesome mood
To frolic on eternity's dread brink,
Unapprehensive; when, for aught we know,
The very first swoln surge shall sweep us in!
Think we, or think we not, time hurries on
With a resistless unremitting stream,

Yet treads more soft than e'er did midnight thief,

That slides his hand under the miser's pillow,
And carries off his prize. What is this world?
What but a spacious burial-field unwall'd,
Strew'd with Death's spoils, the spoils of animals
Savage and tame, and full of dead men's bones!
The very turf on which we tread once liv'd;
And we that live must lend our carcases

To cover our own offspring in their turns
They too must cover their's. 'Tis here all
meet!

The shiv'ring Icelander and sun-burnt Moor;
Men of all climes, that never met before,

And of all creeds, the Jew, the Turk, the
Christian.

Here the proud prince, and favourite yet prouder, His sov'reign's keeper, and the people's scourge

Are huddled out of sight!

Here lie abash'd

The great negotiators of the earth,

And celebrated masters of the balance,

Deep read in stratagems and wiles of courts.

Now vain their treaty - skill; Death scorns to

treat.

Here the o'erloaded slave flings down his burden From his gall'd shoulders; and, when the stern

tyrant,

With all his guards and tools of power about him, Is meditating new unheard-of hardships,

Mocks his short arm, and quick as thought

escapes,

Where tyrants vex not, and the weary rest.
Here the warm lover, leaving the cool shade,
The tell-tale echo, and the babbling stream,
Time out of mind the fav'rite seats of love,

Fast by his gentle mistress lays him down,
Unblasted by foul tongue. Here friends and

foes

Lie close, unmindful of their former feuds.
The lawn-rob'd prelate and plain presbyter,
Erewhile that stood aloof, as shy to meet,
Familiar mingle here, like sister-streams
That some rude interposing rock has split.
Here is the large-limb'd peasant; here the child
Of a span long, that never saw the sun,
Nor press'd the nipple, strangled in life's porch.
Here is the mother with her sons and daughters;