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DRIVEN,

FROM ELEONORA.

As precious gums are not for lasting fire,
They but perfume the temple, and expire:
So was she soon exhal'd, and vanish'd hence;
A short sweet odor, of a vast expence.
She vanish'd, we can scarcely say she dy'd;
For but a now did heaven and earth divide:
She pass'd serenely with a single breath;

This moment perfect health, the next was death:
One sigh did her eternal bliss assure;

So little penance needs, when souls are almost pure.
As gentle dreams our waking thoughts pursue;
Or, one dream pass'd, we slide into a new;

N N

So close they follow, such wild order keep,
We think ourselves awake, and are asleep :
So softly death succeeded life in her:

She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
No pains she suffer'd, nor expir'd with noise;
Her soul was whisper'd out with God's still voice;
As an old friend is beckon'd to a feast,

And treated like a long familiar guest.
He took her as he found, but found her so,
As one in hourly readiness to go:
Ev'n on that day, in all her trim prepar'd;
As early notice she from heaven had heard,
And some descending courier from above
Had given her timely warning to remove;
Or counsel'd her to dress the nuptial room,
For on that night the bridegroom was to come.
He kept his hour, and found her where she lay
Cloath'd all in white, the livery of the day:
Scarce had she sinn'd in thought, or word, or act;
Unless omissions were to pass for fact:
That hardly death a consequence could draw,
To make her liable to nature's law.

O happy soul! if thou canst view from high,
Where thou art all intelligence, all eye;
If, looking up to God, or down to us,
Thou find'st, that any way be pervious,
Survey the ruins of thy house, and see
Thy widow'd and thy orphan family:
Look on thy tender pledges left behind;
And, if thou canst a vacant minute find
From heavenly joys, that interval afford
To thy sad children, and thy mourning lord.
See how they grieve, mistaken in their love,
And shed a beam of comfort from above;
Give them, as much as mortal eyes can bear,
A transient view of thy full glories there;
That they with mod'rate sorrow may sustain
And mollify their losses in thy gain.

Or else divide the grief; for such thou wert,
That should not all relations bear a part,
It were enough to break a single heart.

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FROM RELIGIO LAICI.

DIM as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers,
Is reason to the soul: and as on high,
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here: so reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear,
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere;
So pale grows reason at religion's sight;

So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.

Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led
From cause to cause, to nature's secret head;
And found that one First Principle must be:
But what, or who, that universal He;
Whether some soul incompassing this ball,
Unmade, unmov'd; yet making, moving all;
Or various atoms' interfering dance,
Leap'd into form, the noble work of chance;
Or this great all was from eternity;
Not ev'n the Stagirite himself could see;
And Epicurus guess'd as well as he:
As blindly grop'd they for a future state;
As rashly judg'd of providence and fate:
But least of all could their endeavours find
What most concern'd the good of human kind :
For happiness was never to be found,
But vanish'd from them like enchanted ground.
One thought content the good to be enjoy'd;
This every little accident destroy'd:

The wiser madmen did for virtue toil;

A thorny, or at best a barren soil:

In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep;
But found their line too short, the well too deep;
And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
Without a centre where to fix the soul:

In this wild maze their vain endeavours end:
How can the less the greater comprehend?
Or finite reason reach Infinity?

For what could fathom God were more than He.

The Deist thinks he stands on firmer ground;
Cries Eupɛka, the mighty secret's found.
God is that spring of good; supreme, and best;
We made to serve, and in that service blest.
If so, some rules of worship must be given,
Distributed alike to all by Heaven:

Else God were partial, and to some deny'd
The means his justice should for all provide.
This general worship is to praise and pray
One part to borrow blessings, one to pay :
And when frail nature slides into offence,
The sacrifice for crimes is penitence.
Yet since the effects of providence, we find,
Are variously dispens'd to human kind;
That vice triumphs, and virtue suffers here,
A brand that sovereign justice cannot bear;
Our reason prompts us to a future state,
The last appeal from fortune and from fate,
Where God's all-righteous ways will be declar'd,
The bad meet punishment, the good reward.

Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar,
And would not be oblig'd to God for more.
Vain wretched creature, how art thou misled
To think thy wit these god-like notions bred!
These truths are not the product of thy mind,
But dropt from heaven, and of a nobler kind.
Reveal'd religion first inform'd thy sight,

And reason saw not till faith sprung the light.
Hence all thy natural worship takes the source :
'Tis revelation what thou think'st discourse.
Else how com'st thou to see these truths so clear,
Which so obscure to heathens did appear?

Not Plato these, nor Aristotle found:
Nor he whose wisdom oracles renown'd.

Hast thou a wit so deep, or so sublime,

Or canst thou lower dive, or higher climb?
Canst thou by reason more of godhead know
Than Plutarch, Seneca, or Cicero ?

Those giant wits in happier ages born,

When arms and arts did Greece and Rome adorn,
Knew no such system: no such piles could raise
Of natural worship, built on prayer and praise
To one sole God.

Nor did remorse to expiate sin prescribe:

But slew their fellow-creatures for a bribe:
The guiltless victim groan'd for their offence,
And cruelty and blood was penitence.

If sheep and oxen could atone for men,
Ah! at how cheap a rate the rich might sin!
And great oppressors might Heaven's wrath beguile,
By offering his own creatures for a spoil!

Dar'st thou, poor worm, offend Infinity?
And must the terms of peace be given by thee?
Then thou art justice in the last appeal:
Thy easy God instructs thee to rebel :

And, like a king remote, and weak, must take
What satisfaction thou art pleas'd to make.

But if there be a power too just and strong,
To wink at crimes, and bear unpunish'd wrong;
Look humbly upward, see his will disclose
The forfeit first, and then the fine impose:
A mulet thy poverty could never pay,
Had not eternal wisdom found the way;
And with celestial wealth supply'd thy store;

His justice makes the fine, his mercy quits the score.

FROM AN EPISTLE TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

ONCE I beheld the fairest of her kind,
And still the sweet idea charms my mind:
True, she was dumb; for nature gaz'd so long,
Pleas'd with her work, that she forgot her tongue;
But, smiling, said, She still shall gain the prize;
I only have transferr'd it to her eyes.

Such are thy pictures, Kneller; such thy skill,
That nature seems obedient to thy will;

Comes out, and meets thy pencil in the draught;

Lives there, and wants but words to speak her thought.
At least thy pictures look a voice; and we

Imagine sounds, deceiv'd to that degree,
We think 'tis somewhat more than just to see.
Shadows are but privations of the light;
Yet, when we walk, they shoot before the sight;
With us approach, retire, arise, and fall;
Nothing themselves, and yet expressing all.

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