And whether being craz'd or blind, Or seeking with a bias'd mind,

Have not, it seems, discern'd it.

Oh Friendship! if my soul forego
Thy dear delights while here below;
To mortify and grieve me,

May I myself at last appear
Unworthy, base, and insincere,
Or may my friend deceive me!

Pale Death, with equal foot strikes wide the door Of royal Halls and hovels of the Poor.

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run

The Nen's barge-laden wave,

All these, Life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the Grave.

Was Man (frail always) made more frail

Than in foregoing years?

Did Famine or did Plague prevail,

That so much death appears?

No. These were vig'rous as their sires,
Nor Plague nor Famine came;
This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waves his claim.

Like crowded forest-trees we stand,

And some are mark'd to fall;

The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.

Green as the Bay-tree, ever green
With its new foliage on,

The Gay, the Thoughtless, I have seen,
I pass'd....and they were gone.

Read, ye that run! the solemn truth
With which I charge my page;
A Worm is in the Bud of Youth,
And at the Root of Age.

No present Health can Health insure,
Forget an hour to come;
No medicine though it often cure,

Can always baulk the tomb.

And Oh! that humble as my Lot,
And scorn'd as is my strain,

These truths, though known, too much forgot,

I may not each in vain.

I

Pale Death, with equal foot strikes wide the door Of royal Halls and hovels of the Poor.

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run

The Nen's barge-laden wave,

All these, Life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the Grave.

Was Man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?

Did Famine or did Plague prevail,

That so much death appears?

No. These were vig'rous as their sires,
Nor Plague nor Famine came;
This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waves his claim.

Like crowded forest-trees we stand,

And some are mark'd to fall;

The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.

Green as the Bay-tree, ever green
With its new foliage on,

The Gay, the Thoughtless, I have seen,
I pass'd....and they were gone.

Read, ye that run! the solemn truth
With which I charge my page;
A Worm is in the Bud of Youth,
And at the Root of Age.

No present Health can Health insure,
Forget an hour to come;
No med'cine though it often cure,
Can always baulk the tomb.

And Oh! that humble as my Lot,

And scorn'd as is my strain,

These truths, though known, too much forgot,

I may not each in vain.

I