On this rough ocean, this tempestuous life,
Still covets pain, and shakes with abject fear,
When sickness points to death, and shews the haven near.
The love of life, it yet must be confest,
Was fixed by Nature in the human breast;
And Heaven thought fit that fondness to employ.
To teach us to preserve the brittle toy.
But why, when knowledge has improv'd our thought,
Years undeceived us, and affliction taught;
Why do we strive to grasp with eager hand,
And stop the course of life's quick-ebbing sand?
Why vainly covet, what we can't sustain?
Why, dead to pleasure, would we live to pain?
What is this sentence, from which all would fly?
Oh! what this horrible decree--to die?
Tis but to quit, what hourly we despise
A fretful dream, that tortures as it flies.--
But hold my pen!--nor let a picture stand
Thus darkly coloured by this gloomy hand:
Minds deeply wounded, or with spleen opprest,
Grow sick of life, and sullen sink to rest:
But when the soul, possest of its desires,
Glows with more warmth, and burns with brighter fires;
When friendship soothes each care, and love imparts
Its mutual raptures to congenial hearts;
When joyful life thus strikes the ravish'd eye,
'Tis then a task, a painful task to die.
See! where Philario, poor Philario! lies,
Philario late the happy, as the wise!
Connubial love, and friendship's pleasing power