DEATH:

BY CHARLES EMILY, ESQ.

I.1 THE festive roar of laughter, the warm glow
Of brisk-ey'd joy, and friendship's genial bowl. 
Wit's season'd converse, and the liberal flow
Of unsuspicious youth, profuse of soul,
Delight not ever; from the boisterous scene
Of riot far, and Comus' wild uproar,
From folly's crowd, whose vacant brow serene
Was never knit to wisdom's srowning lore,
Permit me, ye time-hallow'd domes, ye piles
Of rude magnificence, your solemn rest,
Amid your fretted vaults and length'ning isles,
Lonely to wander; no unholy guest,
That means to break, with sacrilegious tread,
The marble slumbers of your monumented dead. 

[Page 14]

II.15 Permit me with sad musings, that inspire
Unlabour'd numbers apt, your silence drear
Blameless to wake, and with th' Orphean lyre
Fitly attemper'd, sooth the merciless ear
Of Hades, and stern death, whose iron sway
Great nature owns thro' all her wide domain;
All that with oary sin cleave their smooth way
Through the green bosom of the spawny main,
And those that to the streaming aether spread,
In many a wheeling glide, their feathery sail;
And those that creep; and those that statelier tread,
That roam o'er forest, hill, or browsed dale;
The victims each of ruthless fate must fall;
E'en God's own image, man, high paramount of all. 

III.29 And ye, the young, the giddy, and the gay,
That startle from the sleepful lid of light
The curtain'd rest, and with the dissonant bray
Of Bacchus, and loud jollity, affright
Yon radiant goddess, that now shoots among
These many windowed isles her glimmering beam;
Know, that or e'er its starr'd career along
Thrice shall have roll'd her silvery-wheeled team,
Some parent breast may heave the answering sigh,
To the slow pauses of the funeral knoll;
E'en now black Atropos, with scowling eye,
Roars in the laugh, and revels o'er the bowl,
E'en now in rosy-crowned pleasure's wreath
Entwines in adder folds all-unsuspected Death. 

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IV43 Know, on the stealing wing of time shall flee
Some few, some short-liv'd years; and all is past;
A future bard these awful domes may see,
Muse o'er the present age as I the last;
Who mouldering in the grave, yet once like you;
The various maze of life were seen to tread,
Each bent their own peculiar to pursue,
As custom urg'd or wilful nature led;
Mix'd with the various crouds inglorious clay,
The nobler virtues undistinguish'd lie;
No more to melt with beauty's heav'n-born ray,
No more to wet compassion's tearful eye,
Catch from the poet raptures not their own,
And feel the thrilling melody of sweet renown. 

V.57 Where is the master-hand, whose semblant art
Chissel'd the marble into life, or taught
From the well-pencill'd portraiture to start
The nerve that beat with soul, the brow that thought! 
Cold are the fingers that in stone-sixt trance
The mute attention rivetting, to the lyre
Struck language: dimm'd the poet's quick-ey'd glance. 
All in wild raptures flashing heaven's own fire. 
Shrunk is the sinew'd energy, that strung
The warrior arm: where sleeps the patriot breast
Whilom that heav'd impassion'd! Where the tongue
That lanc'd its lightning on the towering crest
Of scepter'd insolence, and overthrew
Giant Oppression, leagued with all her earth-born crew! 

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VI.71 These now are past; long, long, ye fleeting years,
Pursue, with glory wing'd, your fated way,
Ere from the womb of time unwelcome peers
The dawn of that inevitable day,
When wrapt in shrouded clay their warmest friend
The widow'd virtues shall again deplore,
When o'er his urn in pious grief shall bend
His Britain, and bewail one patriot more;
For soon must thou, too soon! who spreadst abroad
Thy beaming emanations unconfin'd,
Doom'd, like some better angel sent of God
To scatter blessings over humankind,
Thou too must fall, O Pitt! to shine no more,
And tread these dreadful paths, a Faulkland trod before. 

VII.85 Fast to the driving winds the marshall'd clouds
Sweep discontinuous o'er the etherial plain;
Another still upon another crouds,
All hastening downward to their native main. 
Thus passes o'er thro' varied life's career
Man's fleeting age; the Seasons as they fly
Snatch from us in their course, year after year,
Some sweet connection, some endearing tie. 
The parent, ever-honour'd, ever-dear,
Claims from the filial breast the pious sigh;
A brother's urn demands the kindred tear;
And gentle sorrows gush from friendship's eye. 
To-day we frolick in the rosy bloom
Of jocund youth — The morrow knells us to the tomb. 

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VIII.99 Who knows how soon in this sepulchral spot,
Shall heaven to me the drear abode assign! 
How soon the past irrevocable lot
Of these, that rest beneath me, shall be mine. 
Haply, when Zephyr to thy native bourn
Shall waft thee o'er the storm'd Hibernian wave,
Thygentlebreast,myTavistockaa Francis, Marquis of Tavistock, only son to the Duke of Bedford. His death, which happened on the 22d of March, 1767, was occasioned by a fall from his horse a few days before. Mr. Emily was Fellow of Trinity-College, Cambridge, and had been Tutor to the Marquis. He died in the year 1762, being then major of the Surry militia.
,shallmourn
To find me sleeping in the senseless grave. 
No more the social leisure to divide,
In the sweet intercourse of soul and soul,
Blithe or of graver brow; no more to chide
The ling'ring years impatient as they roll,
Till all thy cultur'd virtues shall display,
Full blossom'd, their bright honours to the gazing day. 

IX.113 Ah, dearest youth! these vows perhaps unheard,
The rude wind scatters o'er the billowy main;
These prayers at friendship's holy shrine preferr'd
May rise to grasp their father's knees in vain. 
Soon, soon may nod the sad funereal plume
With solemn horror o'er thy timeless hearse,
And I survive to grave upon thy tomb
The mournful tribute of memorial verse. —
[Page 18]121  That leave to heaven's decision — Be it thine,
Higher than yet a parent's wishes flew,
To soar in bright pre-eminence, and shine
With self-earn'd honours, eager to pursue,
Where glory, with her clear unsully'd rays,
The well-born spirit lights to deeds of mightiest praise. 

X.127 'Twas she thy God-like Russell's bosom steel'd
With confidence untam'd, in his last breath
Stern-smiling. She, with calm composure, held
The patriot axe of Sidney, edg'd with death. 
Smit with the warmth of her impulsive flame,
Wolfe's gallant virtue flies to worlds a-far,
Emulous to pluck fresh wreaths of well-earn'd fame
From the grim frowning brow of laurel'd war. 
'Twas she, that on the morn of direful birth,
Bared thy young bosom to the fatal blow,
LamentedArmytagebb Sir John Armytage, Member of Parliament for the City of York, who was killed at St. Cas, in the year 1758.
!—thebleedingyouth!
O bathe him in the pearly caves below,
Ye Nereids; and ye Nymphs of Camus hoar,
Weep — for ye oft have seen him on your haunted shore. 

XI.141 Better to die with glory, than recline
On the soft lap of ignominious peace,
Than yawn out the dull droning life supine
In monkish apathy and gowned ease. 
[Page 19]145 Better employ'd in honour's bright career
The least division on the dial's round,
Than thrice to compass Saturn's live-long year,
Grown old in sloth, the burthen of the ground;
Than tug with sweating toil the slavish oar
Of unredeem'd affliction, and sustain
The fev'rous rage of fierce diseases sore
Unnumber'd, that in sympathetic chain
Hang ever thro' the thick circumfluous air,
All from the drizzly verge of yonder star-girt sphere. 

XII.155 Thick in the many-beaten road of life,
A thousand maladies are posted round,
With wretched man to wage eternal strife
Unseen, like ambush'd Indians, till they wound. 
There the swol'n hydrop stands, the wat'ry rheum,
The northern scurvy, blotch with lep'rous scale;
And moping ever in the cloister'd gloom
Of learned sloth, the bookish asthma pale:
And the shunn'd hag unsightly, that ordain'd
On Europe's sons to wreak the faithless sword
Of Cortez, with the blood of millions stain'd,
O'er dog-ey'd lust the tort'ring scourge abhorr'd,
Shakes threat'ning; since the while she wing'd her flight
From Amazon's broad wave, and Andes' snow-clad height. 

XIII.169 Where the wan daughter of the yellow year,
The chatt'ring ague chill, the writhing stone,
And he of ghastly feature, on whose ear
Unheeded croaks the death-bird's warning moan,
[Page 20]173  Marasmus; knotty gout; and the dead life
Of nerveless palsy; there on purpose fell
Dark brooding, whets his interdicted knife
Grim suicide, the damned fiend of hell. 
Theretooisthestunn'dapoplexypightcc Placed.
,
The bloated child of gorg'd intemperance foul;
Self-wasting melancholy, black as night
Lowering, and foaming fierce with hideous howl
The dog hydrophoby, and near allied
Scar'd madness, with her moon-struck eye-balls staring wide. 

XIV.183 There,stretch'donehuge,beneaththerockyminedd Alluding to the earthquake at Lisbon.
,
With boiling sulphur fraught, and smouldering fires;
He, the dread delegate of wrath divine,
E'er while that stood o'er Taio's hundred spires
Vindictive; thrice he wav'd th' earth-shaking wand,
Powerful as that the son of Amram bore,
And thrice he rais'd, and thrice he check'd his hand. 
He struck the rocking ground, with thund'rous roar
Yawn'd; here from street to street hurries, and there
Now runs, now stops, then shrieks and scours amain,
Staring distraction: many a palace fair,
With millions sinks ingulpht, and pillar'd fane;
Old Ocean's farthest waves confest the shock;
Even Albion trembled conscious on his stedfast rock. 

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XV.197 The meagre famine there, and drunk with blood
Stern war; and the loath'd monster, whom of yore
The slimy Naiad of the Memphian flood
Engend'ring, to the bright-hair'd Phoebus bore,
Foul pestilence, that on the wide-stretch'd wings
Of commerce speeds from Cairo's swarthy bay
His westering flight, and thro' the sick air flings
Spotted contagion; at his heels dismay
And desolation urge their fire-wheel'd yoke
Terrible; as long of old, when from the height
Of Paran came unwrath'd the Mightiest, shook
Earth's firm fixt base tottering; thro' the black night
Glanc'd the flash'd lightnings: heavens rent roof abroad
Thunder'd; and universal nature felt its God. 

XVI.211 Who on that scene of terror, on that hour
Of roused indignation, shall withstand
Th' Almighty, when he meditates to shower
The bursting vengeance o'er a guilty land! 
Canst thou, secure in reason's vaunted pride,
Tongue-doughty miscreant, who but now didst gore. 
With more than Hebrew rage the innocent side
Of agonizing mercy, bleeding sore,
Canst thou confront, with stedfast eye unaw'd,
The sworded judgment stalking far and near? 
Well may'st thou tremble, when an injur'd God
Disclaims thee — guilt is ever quick of fear —
Loud whirlwinds howl in zephyr's softest breath;
And ev'ry glancing meteor glares imagin'd death. 

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XVII.225 The good alone are fearless — they alone
Firm and collected in their virtue, brave
The wreck of worlds, and look unshrinking down
On the dread yawnings of the rav'nous grave:
Thrice happy! who the blameless road along
Of honest praise hath reach'd the vale of death;
Around him, like ministrant cherubs, throng
His better actions; to the parting breath
Singing their blessed requiems: he the while
Gently reposing on some friendly breast,
Breathes out his benizons; then with a smile
Of soft complacence, lays him down to rest,
Calm as the slumbering infant: from the goal
Free and unbounded flies the disembodied soul. 

XVIII.239 Whether some delegated charge below,
Some much-lov'd friend its hovering care may claim,
Whether it heavenward soars, again to know
That long-forgotten country whence it came;
Conjecture ever, the misfeatur'd child
Of letter'd arrogance, delights to run
Thro' speculation's puzzling mazes wild,
And all to end at last where it begun. 
Fain would we trace, with reason's erring clue,
The darksome paths of destiny aright;
In vain; the task were easier to pursue
The trackless wheelings of the swallow's flight. 
From mortal ken himself the Almighty shrouds
Pavilion'd in thick night and circumambient clouds. 

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Title (in Source Edition): DEATH:

Author: Charles Emily

Themes: age; death

Genres: sonnet

References: DMI 32127

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Pearch, G. A collection of poems in four volumes. By several hands. Vol. I. [The second edition]. London: printed for G. Pearch, 1770, pp. 13-22. 4v. ; 8⁰. (ESTC T116245; DMI 1122; OTA K093079.001) (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [(OC) 280 o.788].)

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THE PRAISES OF ISIS; A POEM. WRITTEN MDCCLV. ()

DEATH:

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