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By which means we are cowards bred,
Nursed with unnecessary dread,

And ever dream of dying,—till we are dead.

Death, thou child's bugbear, thou fool's terror,

Ghastly set forth the weak to awe,

Begot by fear, increased by error,

Whom none but a sick fancy ever saw,

Thou, who art only feared

By the illiterate and timorous herd
But, by the wise,

Esteemed the greatest of felicities—
Why, sithence by a universal law
Entailed upon mankind thou art,

Should any dread, or seek to avoid thy dart,
When, of the two, fear is the greatest smart ?
O senseless man, who vainly flies

What Heaven has ordained to be

The remedy

Of all thy mortal pains and miseries.

Sorrow, want, sickness, injury, mischance,
The happiest man's certain inheritance,
With all the various ills

Which the wide world with mourning fills,
Or by corruption or disaster bred,

Are for the living all, not for the dead.

When life's sun sets, death is a bed
With sable curtains spread,

Where we lie down

To rest the weary limbs and careful head,
And to the good a bed of down;
There, there no frightful tintamarre
Of tumult in the many-headed beast,
Nor all the loud artillery of war

Can fright us from that sweet, that happy rest
Wherewith the still and silent grave is blest;
Nor all the rattle that above they keep

Break our repose, or rouse us from that everlasting sleep.

The grave is privileged from noise and care,

From tyranny and wild oppression;

Violence has little power there,

E'en worst oppressors let the dead alone;

We're there secure from prince's frowns,
The insolences of the great,

From the rude hands of barbarous clowns,

And policies of those that sweat

The simple to betray and cheat ;

Or if some one with sacrilegious hand

Would persecute us after death,

His want of power shall his will withstand,

And he shall only lose his breath;
For all that he by that shall gain
Will be dishonour for his pain,

And all the clutter he can keep

Will only serve to rock us while we soundly sleep.

The dead no more converse with tears,

With idle jealousies and fears;

No danger makes the dead man start,

No idle love torments his heart,

No loss of substance, parents, children, friends,

Either his peace or sleep offends;

Nought can provoke his anger or despite,
He out of combat is, and injury;
'Tis he of whom philosophers so write,
And who would be a Stoic, let him die;
For whilst we living are, what man is he,
Who the world's wrongs does either feel or see,
That possibly from passion can be free?
But must put on

A noble indignation,

Warranted both by virtue and religion.

Then let me die, and no more subject be

Unto the tyrannizing powers

To which this short mortality of ours

Is either preordained by destiny,
Or bound by natural infirmity.
We nothing, whilst we here remain,
But sorrow and repentance gain,
Nay, even our very joys are pain,
Or, being past,

To woe and torment turn at last ;
Nor is there yet any sacred place
Where we can sanctuary find,

No man's a friend to sorrow and disgrace,
But, flying one, we other mischiefs meet,
Or if we kinder entertainment find,
We bear the seeds of sorrow in the mind,
And keep our frailty when we shift our feet;
Whilst we are men we still our passions have,
And he that is most free is his own slave;
There is no refuge but the friendly grave.

(Cotton.)

LYCIDAS.

ET once more, O ye laurels, and once

more,

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year;
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer :
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme;
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then, sisters of the sacred well

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string;
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:
So may some gentle Muse

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