In climes where  breathes eternal cold,
See numerous nations, warlike, fierce, and bold,
To battle all unanimously run,
Nor fire, nor sword, nor instant death they shun:
Whence this disdain of life in ev'ry breast,
But from a notion on their minds imprest,
That all, who for their country die, are blest.
Add too to these the once prevailing dreams,
Of sweet Elysian groves, and  streams:
All shew with what consent mankind agree
In the firm hope of Immortality.
Grant these th' inventions of the crafty priest,
Yet such inventions never could subsist.
Unless some glimmerings of a future state
Were with the mind coaeval, and innate:
For every fiction, which can long persuade,
In truth must have its first foundations laid.