Front matter
Reading edition
Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
The Explanation of the Frontispiece.
Reader thou in this Frontispiece may’st see
How mortal Man seeks Immortalitie;
His beauteous Frame he sees with speed decline,
And soon dissolv’d by Death, tho’ form’d by Hands Divine.
Sadness in Widows Robes deplores his State,
While the Young Brood inspect the Book of Fate;
Pensive they view the Rise and Fall of Man,
With Tears survey his Transitory Span.
But his great Soul, full of Cœlestial Flame,
Disdaining Death, strives to extend his Name;
And conscious of our too too fickle State,
Would fain elude the Force of Time and Fate:
The narrow Boundaries of Life would pass,
By Statues, Pillars, Monumental Brass,
Aspiring Pyramids, that lift on high
Their spiral Heads to reach his kindred Skie,
Which in their dark Repositories keep
The Bodies safe in their Immortal Sleep;
While healing Balm and Aromatic Spice,
Death’s odious Dissipation to their Form denies.
Death baffl’d thus by wise Chyrurgic Art,
Wounds Mortals there but with a blunted Dart;
And half the Terror of the Griesly Fiend
Is lost, when Mortal Bodies know no end.
The Bodies thus Preserv’d, the thinking Part
Men strive to keep alive by various Art,
And fine wrought Medals and Inscriptions use,
But above all the bright recording Muse;
Thro’ Time’s revolving Tide the faithful Page
Conveys their earliest Rise to the remotest Age,
While Death and Time oppose their Force in vain,
Superior Men above their Force remain;
Temples and Fanes they to the Godhead raise,
To bribe the only Power, that can destroy, with Praise.
Jove pleas’d, in Pity of the pious Race,
Two Messengers sends down the Airy space,
To raise Man’s Ashes from the silent Urn,
Which touch’d by Hermes wand resume their pristine Form.
Jove’s Royal Bird attends to bear on high
Th’ Immortal Soul up to its Native Skie,
While Fame aloud her Silver Trumpet sounds,
And with the Lawrel Wreath the Victor Crowns.
And thus Eternal lives the deathless Mind,
Which, here on Earth, no setled State could find.
