University of Virginia Library

A Collation between Death and Sleep.

Death, and his drowsie kinsman, Sleep, agree
In all the symptomes of Conformitie;
Sleep's caus'd by eating, for the naturall heat
Entices exhalations from the meat,
Transfus'd to Chylus, which the Braine possesse
With an intoxicating drowsinesse;
Death too by fatall eating first came in,
When our first Parents willfully did sin,
And offer'd violence to Gods Decree,
Tasting the fruit of the forbidden tree:
And as when sootie night her darknesse sheds
Through the vast Concave of the aire, and spreads
A Vaile o're bright Hyperion, we devest
Our bodies, to compose our selves to rest:
So our enfranchis'd soules shall likewise be
Disroab'd o'th weeds of their Mortalitie,
VVhen death shall an eternall night disperse
Through all those Functions that with life commerce.
And as when the great eye o'th day displayes,
In the illuminated aire, his Rayes,
The Light dispers'd in glimpses does inspire
Our hands againe our bodies to attire;
So when the Trump at the last day shall all
By its shrill Summons to Gods Audit call,
And Christs the Sun of Righteousnesse shall come,
To distribute to th' world a publike Doom,
Our moulder'd and disbanded bodies must
Quit the close confines of their beds of dust,
To cloath again our widdow'd Soules, and be
Enstated both with Immortalitie.