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Where all my joys and wishes are confin'd,
Thou'rt day and life, and heav'n itself to me.
.III.

Come, my beloved, then let us repair

To those bleft feats where we'll our flames improve; Oh, with what heat fhall I caress thee there! And in sweet transports give up all my love.

The UNKNOWN WORLD.

Verfes occafioned by hearing a pass-bell. By the Reverend

Mr. St- n.

But what's beyond death ?.--Who shall draw that vail?--Hughes's fiege of Damascus.

HARK, my gay friend, that folemn toll

Speaks the departure of my foul:

'Tis gone, that's all we know----not where,
Or how th' unbody'd foul does fare.
In that mysterious world none knows,
But God alone, to whom it goes;
To whom departed fouls return,
To take their doom, to smile or mourn.
Oh! by what glimm'ring light we view
The unknown world we're haft'ning to!
God has lock'd up the myftic page,
And curtain'd darkness round the stage!
Wife heav'n, to render search perplext,
Has drawn 'twixt this world and the next
A dark impenetrable screen,

All behind which is yet unseen!

We talk of heav'n, we talk of hell; But what they mean, no tongue can tell! Heav'n is the realm where angels are, And hell the chaos of despair!

But what these awful words imply, None of us know before we die! Whether we will or no, we must Take the fucceeding world on trust.

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This hour perhaps our friend is well; Death ftruck the next, he cries, farewell! I die !----and then, for ought we fee, Ceases at once to breath and be.

Thus launch'd from life's ambiguous fhore,
Ingulph'd in death, appears no more,
Then undirected to repair

To diftant worlds we know not where.
Swift flies the foul, perhaps 'tis gone
A thoufand leagues beyond the fun;
Or twice ten thousand more thrice told,
Ere the forfaken clay is cold!.

And yet who knows, if friends we lov'd,
Tho' dead, may be fo far remov'd?
Only this vail of flesh between,
Perhaps they watch us, tho' unseen.
Whilft we, their lofs lamenting, fay,
They're out of hearing, far away;
Guardians to us, perhaps they're near,
Conceal'd in vehicles of air.

And yet no notices they give,

Nor tell us where, nor how they live;
Tho' confcious, whilft with us below,
How much themselves defir'd to know;
As if bound up by folemn fate,
To keep this fecret of their state,
To tell their joys or pains to none,
That man might live by faith alone.
Well let my fov'reign, if he pleafe,
Lock up his marvelous decrees;
Why fhould I wish him to reveal
What he thinks proper to conceal ?
It is enough that I believe,
Heav'n's brighter than I can conceive:
And he that makes it all his care
To ferve God here, shall see him there!
But oh! what worlds fhall I furvey,
The moment that I leave this clay ?
How sudden the furprise, how new!
Let it, my God, be happy too.

FINI S.

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