BAXTER'S POEMS. 1'55 'Twas mutton, beef, pork, chicken; or such food ;. What now thou art, is what thou didst eat . Part of a fish, a swine, a calf, or lamb, Is turn'd into a lady, lord, or king; This metamorphosis of beast to man, Is surely done by some great ~nseen thing. Yea all of man that's seen did lately grow In fields, and that was corn, or fruit, or grass , Which now is flesh, or from the spring did flow, To shew what flesh will be, by wh:at it was. · Vain man! know'st thou no deeper than thy skin ? Go see an open'd corpse, and that will shew What garbage, :filtll', and dung are hid within,. What thy vile body is, thou there may'st know. Think that thy noisome, stinking excrement Is one part of that sumptuous, pleasant food; ' Whose other part a while of better scent, Is turned into that proud flesh and blood. If yet deceitful beauty rheat thy eyes, Look on a face that 's cursed with the pocks ;- Or a white breast where stinking cancers rise, And pity fools whom fleshly pleasure mocks . Ifhealth, wealth, pomp or power delude thy mind ; Go to the greatest dying sick man's bed, · Ask him what safety he in these doth :find ? Yea, go yet further, l(')Ok upon the dead. Here much unlike to what it was before, Is that now loathsome flesh, that ghastly face; What h·ath it now of all .its power and store ? Remember this 'must shortly be !hY case.
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