Not from a love to God, but fear of hell,
For who with fiends and flames can bear to dwell?
But die he must, the final hour is come,
And not a ray of light his thoughts illume;
Wildly around his haggard eye-balls roll,
And speak the anguish of a hopeless soul;
Had he a thousand worlds within his pow'r;
He'd part with all to live another hour.
Must he depart and go, he knows not where?
Can neither cordials ease, nor doctors spare ?
Oh this is woe, the deepest woe indeed;
Enough to make a marble statue bleed!
To feel the cold pale elammy sweats of death,
The stammering tongue, faint pulse, and gasping breath
Without a ray of percy to beguile
His pangs, when shuffling off the mortal coil:
To lay him down in sorrow, and no trace,
No spark of hope, no beam of special grace:
Nor can his friends that wait around his bed,
Beguile the blackness of the dismal shade;
They watch, with torturing fear and deep suspence,
The dismal horrors of his exit hence.
Once he thought hell a fable, now alas !
His conscience loud proclaims the doleful place;

Torn suddenly from all his pleasant things; How fiercely keen each sad reflection stings: From all that gay deluded mortals please, His days of feasting, and his nights of ease: Drove out to sea by a tremendous gale, Without a compass, anchor, helm, or sail: Where distant from the beatific shore,

He sinks in dismal waves to rise no more.

Nor is it better with the wretch who dies
In stupid apathy, the dupe of lies;

A faithless priest, or siren friend may tell
The dying sinner all is safe and well;
With anodynes the drowsy conscience lull,
With soothing lies the restless judgment gull :
May help him to a vain delusive hope,
And lean his soul on a most rotten prop;
Till down he sinks to meet an awful fate,
And curse his deep delusions when too late,

The stubborn sceptic may refuse assent
To sacred truth, till life's last wick is spent ;
May riotously live, and when he die,
Draw courage from despair to vouch the lie;

Till flaming justice his damnation seal,
A firm believer now against his will:
Convinc'd by torturing evidence and light,
Perdition has made many a proselyte.
A brainless rake with supercilious air,

May laugh at hell, and wish all priestcraft there
May tip his shafts with blasphemy and wit,
And twist and ridicule God's holy writ:

So did Voltaire but when his death drew near,
The hoary sceptic, harrow'd up with fear,
Would fain have been a Christian at the last,
But ah, too late, the fatal die was cast!