PREFACE.

S the occafion of this Poem was real, not ficti

A tious; to the method purfued in it, was rather

impofed, by what fpontaneously arofe in the author's mind on that occafion, than meditated or defigned. Which will appear very probable from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of Poetry, which is, from long narrations to draw fhort morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is fhort, and the morality arifing from it makes the bulk of the Poem. The reason of it is, That the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the writer.

THE

COMPLAINT.

NIGHT THE FIRST.

ON

LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

то

THE RIGHT HON. ARTHUR ONSLOW,

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

IR'D Nature's fweet reftorer, balmy Sleep!

He, like the world, his ready vifit pays
Where Fortune fmiles; the wretched he forfakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unfullied with a tear.
From fhort (as ufual) and difturb'd repofe,

5

I wake: How happy they, who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infeft the grave.
I wake, emerging from a fea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck'd defponding thought, 10
From wave to wave of fancied mifery,