When thus spoke Death, impatient of controul, "Quick, move, and bring from yonder black bureau "The sacred book that may preserve my soul "From long damnation, and eternal woe. 260 66 "And with it bring--for you may find them there, "The works of holy authors, dead and gone, "The sacred tome of moving Drelincourt, "Or what more solemn Sherlock mus'd upon: 67 "And read, my Cleon, what these sages say, 265 "And what the sacred Penman hath declar'd, "That when the wicked leaves his odious way, "His sins shall vanish, and his soul be spar'd." 68 But he, unmindful of the vain command, Reason'd with Death, nor were his reasonings few: 270 Quoth he--"My Lord, what frenzy moves your brain, "Pray, what, my Lord, can Sherlock be to you, 69 "Or all the sage divines that ever wrote, "Grave Drelincourt, or heaven's unerring page; "These point their arrows at your hostile breast, 275 "And raise new pains that time must ne'er assuage. 70 "And why should thus thy woe disturb my rest? "Much of Theology I once did read, "And there 'tis fixt, sure as my God is so, "That Death shall perish, tho' a God should bleed. 280 71 "The martyr, doom'd the pangs of fire to feel, "Lives but a moment in the sultry blast; "The victim groans, and dies beneath the steel, "But thy severer pains shall always last. 72 "O miscreant vile, thy age has made thee doat-- 285 "If peace, if sacred peace were found for you, "Hell would cry out, and all the damn'd arise "And, more deserving, seek for pity too. 73 "Seek not for Paradise--'tis not for thee, "Where high in heaven its sweetest blossoms blow, 290 "Nor even where, gliding to the Persian main, "Thy waves, Euphrates, through the garden flow! 74 "Bloody has been thy reign, O man of hell, "Who sympathiz'd with no departing groan; "Cruel wast thou, and hardly dost deserve 295 "To have _Hic Jacet_ stampt upon thy stone. 75 "He that could build his mansion o'er the tombs, "Depending still on sickness and decay, "May dwell unmov'd amidst these drowsier glooms, "May laugh the dullest of these shades away. 300 76 "Remember how with unrelenting ire "You tore the infant from the unwilling breast-- "Aspasia fell, and Cleon must expire, "Doom'd by the impartial God to endless rest: 77 "In vain with stars he deck'd yon' spangled skies, 305 "And bade the mind to heaven's bright regions soar, "And brought so far to my admiring eyes "A glimpse of glories that shall blaze no more! 78 "Even now, to glut thy devilish wrath, I see "From eastern realms a wasteful army rise: 310 "Why else those lights that tremble in the north? "Why else yon' comet blazing through the skies? 79