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Lettered inside image: "31 | Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world-- | The world, that gulph of souls, immortal souls, | Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire | To reach the distant skies, and triumph there | On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters changed, | Though we from earth; ethereal, they that fall. | Such veneration due, O man! to man. | Who venerate themselves, the world despise. | For what, gay friend, is this escutcheon'd world, | Which hangs out death in one eternal night? | A night, that glooms us in the noon-tide ray, | And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud. | Life's little stage is a small eminence, | Inch-high the grave above; that home of man, | Where dwells the multitude; we gaze around; | We read their monuments; we sigh; and while | We sigh, we sink; and are what we deplored: | Lamenting, or lamented, all our lot! | Is death at distance? no: he has been on thee; | And given sure earnest of his final blow. | Those hours, which lately smiled, where are they now? | Pallid to thought, and ghastly! drown'd, all drown'd | In that great deep, which nothing disembogues; | And, dying, they bequeath'd thee small renown: | The rest are on the wing; how fleet their flight! | Already has the fatal train took fire; | A moment, and the world's blown up to thee; | The sun is darkness, and the stars are dust. | *'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, | And ask them, what report they bore to heaven;"; lower right: "inv & sc | WB"; lower left: "Pubd. June 27th. 1796, by R. Edwards, No.142 New Bond Street."; Lettered on facing page: "30 | And reinstate us on the rock of peace. | Let it not share its predecessor's fate; | Nor, like its elder sisters, die a fool: | Shall it evaporate in fume--fly off | Fuliginous, and stain us deeper still? | Shall we be poorer for the plenty pour'd? | More wretched for the clemencies of heaven? | Where shall I find him? angels! tell me where-- | You know him: he is near you--point him out: | Shall I see glories beaming from his brow? | Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers? | Your golden wings, now hov'ring o'er him, shed | Protection; now, are waving in applause | To that blest son of foresight--lord of fate-- | That aweful independent on to-morrow! | Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past; | Whose yesterdays look backward with a smile, | Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly; | That common, but opprobrious lot! past hours, | If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight, | If folly bounds our prospect by the grave, | All feeling of futurity benumb'd; | All god-like passion for eternals quench'd; | All relish of realities expired; | Renounced all correspondence with the skies; | Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire; | In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar; | Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; | Dismounted every great and glorious aim; | Embruted every faculty divine;"