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These bugbears of the mind, this inward hell,
No rays of outward funfhine can difpel;
But nature and right reason must display

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Their beams abroad, and bring the darkfome foul to-day.

VOL. II.

THE LATTER PART OF

THE THIRD BOOK

OF

LUCRETIUS;

AGAINST THE FEAR OF DEATH,

WHAT has 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 infested land and main,

When heaven and earth were in confufion hurl'd,

5

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 shall be disjoin'd,
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind, 10
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not be,
Though earth in feas, and feas in heaven were
loft,

We should not move, we only should be toft.

Nay, e'en fuppofe when we have fuffer'd fate, 15
The foul could feel in her divided state,
What's that to us? for we are only we

While fouls and bodies in one frame agree.
Nay, though our atoms fhould revolve by

chance,

And matter leap into the former dance;

20

Though time our life and motion could restore, And make our bodies what they were before, What gain to us would all this bustle bring? The new-made man would be another thing. When once an interrupting pause is made, 25 That individual being is decay'd.

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We, who are dead and gone, fhall bear no part
In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart,
Which to that other mortal fhall accrue,
Whom of our matter time shall mould anew.
For backward if you look on that long space
Of ages paft, and view the changing face
Of matter, toft and variously combin'd
In fundry fhapes, 'tis eafy for the mind.
From thence to infer, that feeds of things have
been

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In the fame order as they now are seen:
Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace,
Because a pause of life, a gaping space,
Has come betwixt, where memory lies dead,
And all the wandring motions from the sense

are fled.

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For whofoe'er shall in misfortunes live,
Muft be, when thofe misfortunes fhall arrive;
And fince the man who is not, feels not woe,
(For death exempts him, and wards off the blow,
Which we, the living, only feel and bear)
What is there left for us in death to fear?
When once that pause of life has come between,
'Tis juft the fame as we had never been.
And therefore if a man bemoan his lot,

That after death his mouldring limbs shall rot, 50
Or flames, or jaws of beasts devour his mass,
Know, he's an unfincere, unthinking ass.
A fecret fting remains within his mind ;
The fool is to his own caft offals kind.
He boasts no fenfe can after death remain; 55
Yet makes himself a part of life again;
As if fome other He could feel the pain.
If, while we live, this thought molest his head,
What wolf or vulture fhall devour me dead?
He waftes his days in idle grief, nor can
Diftinguish 'twixt the body and the man;
But thinks himself can ftill himself furvive;
And, what when dead he feels not, feels alive.
Then he repines that he was born to die,
Nor knows in death there is no other He,
No living He remains his grief to vent,
And o'er his fenfelefs carcafe to lament.
If after death 'tis painful to be torn

By birds, and beafts, then why not so to burn,

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Or drench'd in floods of honey to be foak'd, 70
Imbalm'd to be at once preferv'd and choak'd ;
Or on an airy mountain's top to lie,
Expos'd to cold and heaven's inclemency;
Or crowded in a tomb to be oppreft
With monumental marble on thy breast?
But to be snatch'd from all the houshold joys,
From thy chafte wife, and thy dear prattling

boys,

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Whofe little arms about thy legs are caft, And climbing for a kifs prevent their mother's hafte,

Infpiring fecret pleasure through thy breaft; 80 Ah! these shall be no more: thy friends oppreft Thy care and courage now no more shall free; Ah! wretch, thou cry'ft, ah! miferable me! One woful day fweeps children, friends, and wife,

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And all the brittle bleffings of my life!
Add one thing more, and all thou fay'st is true;
Thy want and wish of them is vanish'd too :
Which, well confider'd, were a quick relief
To all thy vain imaginary grief.

For thou shalt fleep, and never wake again, 90

And, quitting life, fhalt quit thy living pain. But we, thy friends, fhall all thofe forrows find," Which in forgetful death thou leav'ft behind; No time fhall dry our tears, nor drive thee

from our mind.

thee

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