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On this side death; and points them out to men :
A lecture silent, but of sovereign power !
To vice, confusion; and to virtue, peace.

Whatever farce the boastful hero plays,
Virtue alone has majesty in death;
And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns :

PHILANDER! he severely frown'd on thee:

"No warning given—unceremonious fate!

"A sudden rush from life's meridian joys!

"A wrench from all we love—from all we are!

"A restless bed of pain! a plunge opaque

"Beyond conjecture! feeble nature's dread!

"Strong reason's shudder at the dark unknown!

"A sun extinguish'd! a just opening grave!

"And oh! the last—last—what? can words express?

"Thought reach? the last, last—silence of a friend!"

Where are those horrors, that amazement where,
This hideous group of ills, which singly shock?

Demand from man—I thought him man till now.

Through nature's wreck, through vanquish'd agonies,
Like the stars struggling through this midnight gloom,
What gleams of joy! what more than human peace!

Where, the frail mortal? the poor abject worm?

No, not in death, the mortal to be found.

His conduct is a legacy for all,
Richer than Mammon's for his single heir:
His comforters he comforts; great in ruin,
With unreluctant grandeur gives, not yields
His soul sublime; and closes with his fate.