--
But hold my pen!--nor let a picture stand
Thus darkly coloured by this gloomy hand:
Minds deeply wounded, or with spleen opprest,
Grow sick of life, and sullen sink to rest:
But when the soul, possest of its desires,
Glows with more warmth, and burns with brighter fires;
When friendship soothes each care, and love imparts
Its mutual raptures to congenial hearts;
When joyful life thus strikes the ravish'd eye,
'Tis then a task, a painful task to die.
See! where Philario, poor Philario! lies,
Philario late the happy, as the wise!
Connubial love, and friendship's pleasing power
Fill'd his good heart, and crown'd his every hour:
But sickness bids him those lost joys deplore,
And death now tells him, they are his no more.
Blest in each name of Husband, Father, Friend,
Must those strong ties, those dear connexions end?
Must be thus leave to all the woes of life
His helpless child, his unprotected wife?
While thus to earth these lov'd ideas bind,
And tear his lab'ring--his distracted mind:
How shall that mind its wretched fate defy?
How calm his trouble, and how learn to die?
In vain would Faith before his eyes display
The opening realms of never-ending day;
Superior love his faithful soul detains
Bound, strongly bound, in Adamantine chains.
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