156 BAXTER'S POEMS. How long the sight and scent can you abide, Of your dead, greatest, wisest, dearest friend? Unless some art the frightful visage hide, And from the smell your tender sense defend. We can devise no better a dispose Of dearest friends, than a deep, darksome grave ; Where to lie rotting we may them repose, The living from their sight and scent to save. The worms without repulse there feasted be, They feed on heart and face without offence; What pamper'd bodies are, there you may see, If you dig up that corpse a few months hence, But though what 's out of sight, grows out of mind, Pictures and gilded tombs are also set, The senseless hearts of men further to blind: That what flesh is they may the m9re forget Yet the next open grave casts up in sight The skull, whose holes of eyes and mouth you see, , Where enter'd formerly the dear delight; Think then, thus shortly it will be with me. The harmless, pretty bird with pleasure sings, Not so deform'd in life or death as we; The cruel bowels of great lords and kings To her an honourable tomb may be. Save that to be devoured by bad men, Turns guiltless things into a guilty wight; And makes them sinful, and more fretid, than If they had rotted in the open light. The labouring aut less burdensome flesh hath, Thousands in peace in oue stor'd heap eau dwell;
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