Read, ye that run, the solemn truth, No present health can health insure And oh! that humble as my lot, These truths, though known, too much forgot, So prays your clerk with all his heart, And, ere he quits the pen, Begs you for once to take his part And answer all-Amen! ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1788. Improve the present hour, for all beside Is a mere feather on a torrent's tide. 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 sheet, 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 And Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore, Forced to a pause, would feel it good to think, Told that his setting sun must rise no more. Ah self-deceived! Could I prophetic say Who next is fated, and who next to fall, The rest might then seem privileged to play; But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to ALL. Observe the dappled foresters, how light They bound, and airy o'er the sunny glade- Had we their wisdom, should we, often warned, A thousand awful admonitions scorned, Die self-accused of life run all to waste? Sad waste! for which no after thrift atones : Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught That, soon or late, death also is your lot, 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, His folly, and his woe! "Worlds should not bribe me back to tread Again life's dreary waste, To see again my day o'erspread 66 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 Of faith's supporting rod, Then breathed his soul into its rest, The bosom of his God. He was a man, among the few, And all his strength from scripture drew, To hourly use applied. That rule he prized, by that he feared, He hated, hoped, and loved; Nor ever frowned, or sad appeared, But when his heart had roved. For he was frail as thou or I, And evil felt within; But, when he felt it, heaved a sigh, Such lived Aspasio; and at last His joys be mine, each reader cries, They shall be yours, my verse replies, ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1790. He who sits from day to day, Where the watchman in his round So your verse-man I, and clerk, Duly at my time I come, Soon the grave must be your home, But the monitory strain, Oft repeated in your ears, Seems to sound too much in vain, Wins no notice, wakes no fears. Can a truth, by all confessed Of such magnitude and weight, Pleasure's call attention wins, Death and judgment, heaven and hell- Oh then, ere the turf or tomb Cover us from every eye, Spirit of instruction come, Make us learn that we must die, |