Oh! that some courteous ghost would blab it out; What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be. I've heard that souls departed have sometimes Forewarn'd men of their death:--'twas kindly done To knock, and give the alarm.--But what means This stinted charity?--'Tis but lame kindness That does its work by halves.--Why might you not Tell us what 'tis to die? do the strict laws 440 Of your society forbid your speaking Upon a point so nice?--I'll ask no more: Sullen, like lamps in sepulchres, your shine Enlightens but yourselves. Well, 'tis no matter; A very little time will clear up all, And make us learn'd as you are, and as close. Death's shafts fly thick!--Here falls the village-swain, And there his pamper'd lord!--The cup goes round; And who so artful as to put it by? 'Tis long since death had the majority; 450 Yet, strange! the living lay it not to heart. See yonder maker of the dead man's bed, The Sexton, hoary-headed chronicle; Of hard, unmeaning face, down which ne'er stole A gentle tear; with mattock in his hand Digs through whole rows of kindred and acquaintance, By far his juniors.--Scarce a skull's cast up, But well he knew its owner, and can tell Some passage of his life.--Thus hand in hand The sot has walk'd with death twice twenty years; 460 And yet ne'er younker on the green laughs louder, Or clubs a smuttier tale: when drunkards meet, None sings a merrier catch, or lends a hand More willing to his cup.--Poor wretch! he minds not, That soon some trusty brother of the trade Shall do for him what he has done for thousands. On this side, and on that, men see their friends Drop off, like leaves in autumn; yet launch out Into fantastic schemes, which the long livers In the world's hale and undegenerate days 470 Could scarce have leisure for.--Fools that we are! Never to think of death and of ourselves At the same time: as if to learn to die Were no concern of ours.--O more than sottish, For creatures of a day, in gamesome mood, To frolic on eternity's dread brink Unapprehensive; when, for aught we know, The very first swoln surge shall sweep us in! Think we, or think we not, time hurries on With a resistless, unremitting stream; 480 Yet treads more soft than e'er did midnight thief, That slides his hand under the miser's pillow, And carries off his prize.--What is this world? What but a spacious burial-field unwall'd, Strew'd with death's spoils, the spoils of animals Savage and tame, and full of dead men's bones! The very turf on which we tread once lived; And we that live must lend our carcases To cover our own offspring: in their turns They too must cover theirs.--'Tis here all meet! 490 The shivering Icelander, and sun-burnt Moor; Men of all climes, that never met before; And of all creeds, the Jew, the Turk, the Christian.