(seq. 50)

44

And present taste makes evry sence to rush

With instant leap into the boundless sea,

To bathe in fertile smiles of pregnant bliss,

Commensurate to the unbounded wish,

Tho large as hell that ever yawns the more,

Or can the surfiet poison understanding

And the life luxuriant dwindle down

To melancholys dreary scenes, obscure,

And ever pointing to the end of time,

That rools a torpid weight abhorrent all,

To damp the revels of associate friends

Where myrth perfumd with epicurian jest

Would slake the thirst of dull christianity

And shame religion & its advocates,

Who seek for pleasures in a virtuous life

With refrence to a future state; perhaps

Unworthy of the distant thot, to wish

For joys that ne'er can recompence the toil