Then take advice from yonder scull;
And, when the flames of life grow dull,
Leave not a tooth in either jaw,
Since dentists steal—and fear no law.
He, that would court a sound repose,
To barren hills and deserts goes:
Where busy hands admit no sun,
Where he may doze, 'till all is done.
Yet there, even there tho' slyly laid,
'Tis folly to defy the spade:
Posterity invades the hill,
And plants our relics where she will.
But O! forbear the rising sigh!
All care is past with them that die:
Jove gave, when they to fate resigned,
An opiate of the strongest kind:
Death is a sleep, that has no dreams:
In which all time a moment seems—
And skeletons perceive no pain
Till Nature bids them wake again.
[34] Published in the Daily Advertiser, June 17, 1790. The bodies were removed at the time the demolition of Fort George was in progress. Text from the 1809 edition.
THE ORATOR OF THE WOODS[35]
Each traveller asks, with fond surprize,
Why Thyrsis wastes the fleeting year
Where gloomy forests round him rise,
And only rustics come to hear—
His taste is odd (they seem to say)
Such talents in so poor a way!
To those that courts and titles please
How dismal is his lot;
Beyond the hills, beneath some trees,
To live—and be forgot—
In dull retreats, where Nature binds
Her mass of clay to vulgar minds.