Emblems of Mortality; representing, in upwards of fifty cuts, death seizing all ranks and degrees of people

The CURSE.

Reading edition

Cursed is the Ground for thy Sake; in Sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the Days of thy Life, &c.

Genesis iii. 17.

Illustration from Emblems of Mortality; representing, in upwards of fifty cuts, death seizing all ranks and degrees of people

Curs’d be the Earth for thy Offence, And barren be the Ground, And full of Toil and Labour great, Thy anxious Life be found; Till Death thy lifeless Limbs replace In Earth’s cold narrow Womb, Then Dust, which at the first thou wert, Thou quickly shalt become.

Woe, Woe, Woe to the Inhabiters of the Earth.

Revelations viii. 13.

All in whose Nostrils was the Breath of Life, of all that was in the dry Land, died.

Genesis vii. 22.

Woe, grievous Woe, to all who now In this vile World abide; For Times await you big with Grief, And every Ill beside. Though now to you a plenteous Share Of Fortune’s Gifts may fall, Pale Death will be, or soon or late, A Visitant to all.