Heaven in her eye, and in her hand her keys; And still the more she found her life decay, With greater force she grasp'd those signs of sway: Then fell and died!--In haste her sons drew near, And dropp'd, in haste, the tributary tear; Then from th' adhering clasp the keys unbound, And consolation for their sorrows found. 190 Death has his infant-train; his bony arm Strikes from the baby-cheek the rosy charm; The brightest eye his glazing film makes dim, And his cold touch sets fast the lithest limb: He seized the sick'ning boy to Gerard lent[25], When three days' life, in feeble cries, were spent; In pain brought forth, those painful hours to stay, To breathe in pain and sigh its soul away! "But why thus lent, if thus recall'd again, To cause and feel, to live and die, in pain?" 200 Or rather say, Why grievous these appear, If all it pays for Heaven's eternal year; If these sad sobs and piteous sighs secure Delights that live, when worlds no more endure? The sister-spirit long may lodge below, And pains from nature, pains from reason, know; Through all the common ills of life may run, By hope perverted and by love undone; A wife's distress, a mother's pangs, may dread, And widow-tears, in bitter anguish, shed; 210 May at old age arrive through numerous harms, With children's children in those feeble arms: Nor, till by years of want and grief oppress'd, Shall the sad spirit flee and be at rest! Yet happier therefore shall we deem the boy, Secured from anxious care and dangerous joy? Not so! for then would Love Divine in vain Send all the burthens weary men sustain; All that now curb the passions when they rage, The checks of youth and the regrets of age; 220 All that now bid us hope, believe, endure, Our sorrow's comfort and our vice's cure; All that for Heaven's high joys the spirits train, And charity, the crown of all, were vain. Say, will you call the breathless infant bless'd, Because no cares the silent grave molest? So would you deem the nursling from the wing Untimely thrust and never train'd to sing; But far more bless'd the bird whose grateful voice Sings its own joy and makes the woods rejoice, 230 Though, while untaught, ere yet he charm'd the ear, Hard were his trials and his pains severe!