Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7.djvu/347

Rh And then supporting with your store Those whom you dragg'd from death before? So Providence on mortals waits, Preserving what it first creates. Your generous boldness to defend An innocent and absent friend; That courage which can make you just To merit humbled in the dust; The detestation you express For vice in all its glittering dress; That patience under torturing pain. Where stubborn stoicks would complain: Must these like empty shadows pass, Or forms reflected from a glass? Or mere chimeras in the mind, That fly, and leave no marks behind? Does not the body thrive and grow By food of twenty years ago? And, had it not been still supplied, It must a thousand times have died. Then, who with reason can maintain That no effects of food remain? And is not virtue in mankind The nutriment that feeds the mind; Upheld by each good action past, And still continued by the last? Then, who with reason can pretend That all effects of virtue end? Believe me, Stella, when you show That true contempt for things below, Nor prize your life for other ends, Than merely to oblige your friends; Your former actions claim their part, And join to fortify your heart. For