And Oh! that humble as my lot, And scorned as is my strain, These truths, though known, too much forgot, So prays your clerk with all his heart, And, ere he quits the pen, COULD I, from heaven inspired, as sure presage To whom the rising year shall prove his last; As I can number in my punctual page, And item down the victims of the past; How each would trembling wait the mournful sleet, On which the press might stamp him next to die; And, reading here his sentence, how replete With anxious meaning, heaven-ward turn his eye! Time then would seem more precious than the joys Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink Ah self-deceived! Could I prophetic. say Observe the dappled foresters, how light i Had we their wisdom, should we, often warned, Sad waste! for which no after thrift atones: Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught Of all these sepulchres, instructors true, That, soon or late, death also is your lot, And the next opening grave may yawn for you. ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1789. -Placidaque ibi demum morte quievit. VIRG. There calm at length he breathed his soul away. "OH most delightful hour by man "Experienced here below, "The hour that terminates his span 45 Worlds should not bribe me back to tread "Again life's dreary waste, "To see again my day o'erspread "With all the gloomy past. " My home henceforth is in the skies Earth, seas, and sun adieu! All heaven unfolded to my eyes, "I have no sight for you." So spoke Aspasio, firm possest He was a man, among the few, Sincere on virtue's side; And all his strength from scripture drew, That rule he prized, by that he feared, He hated, hoped, and loved; For he was frail as thou or I, But, when he felt it, heaved a sigh, And loathed the thought of sin. Such lived Aspasio; and at last Called up from Earth to Heaven, The gulph of death triumphant passed, By gales of blessing driven. His joys be mine, each Reader cries, They shall be yours, my Verse replies, ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1790. Ne commonentem recta sperne. Despise not my good counsel. BUCHANAN. He who sits from day to day, Hardly knows that he has sung. |