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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extracts from The Grave: Self-Murder

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake

Robert Blair (1699–1746)

Extracts from The Grave: Self-Murder

(See full text.)

SELF-MURDER! name it not: our island’s shame,

That makes her the reproach of neighbouring states.

Shall nature, swerving from her earliest dictate,

Self-preservation, fall by her own act?

Forbid it, Heaven!—let not upon disgust

The shameless hand be foully crimsoned o’er

With blood of its own lord.—Dreadful attempt!

Just reeking from self-slaughter, in a rage,

To rush into the presence of our Judge

As if we challenged him to do his worst

And mattered not his wrath: unheard-of tortures

Must be reserved for these, these herd together,

The common damned shun their society,

And look upon themselves as fiends less foul.

Our time is fix’d and all our days are numbered,

How long, how short we know not; this we know,

Duty requires we calmly wait the summons,

Nor dare to stir till Heaven shall give permission,

Like sentries that must keep their destined stand

And wait the appointed hour till they’re relieved.

Those only are the brave that keep their ground,

And keep it to the last. To run away

Is but a coward’s trick. To run away

From this world’s ills, that at the very worst

Will soon blow o’er, thinking to mend ourselves

By boldly venturing on a world unknown

And plunging headlong in the dark—’tis mad,

No phrenzy half so desperate as this.