So spoke Afpafio, firm poffeft
Of faith's fupporting rod,

Then breathed his foul into its reft,
The bofom of his God.

He was a man among the few

Sincere on virtue's fide;

And all his ftrength from fcripture drew,

To hourly use applied.

That rule he prized, by that he feared,
He hated, hoped, and loved;

Nor ever frowned, or fad 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 figh,
And loathed the thought of fin.

Such lived Afpafio; and at last

Called up from Earth to Heaven,

The gulph of death triumphant paffed,
By gales of bleffing driven.

His joys be mine, each Reader cries,
When my last hour arrives:

They fhall be yours, my Verse replies,
Such only be your lives,

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1790.

Ne commonentem recta sperne.

BUCHANAN.

Despise not my good counsel.

He who fits from day to day,
Where the prifoned lark is hung,
Heedlefs of his loudeft lay,

Hardly knows that he has fung.

Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None, accustomed to the found,

Wakes the fooner for his cry.

So your verfe-man I, and clerk,

Yearly in my fong proclaim

Death at hand-yourselves his mark-
And the foe's unerring aim.

Duly at my time I come,

Publishing to all aloud

Soon the grave must be

your home,

And your only fuit, a shroud.

But the monitory strain,

Oft repeated in your ears,
Seems to found too much in vain,
Wins no notice, wakes no fears.

Can a truth, by all confeffed

Of fuch magnitude and weight,
Grow, by being oft expreffed,
Trivial as a parrot's prate?

Pleafure's call attention wins,

Hear it often as we may;

New as ever feem our fins,

Though committed every day.

Death and judgment, Heaven and Hell

Thefe alone, fo often heard,

No more move us than the bell

When fome ftranger is interred.

Oh then, ere the turf or tomb
Cover us from every eye,

Spirit of inftruction come,

Make us learn that we muft die.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1792.

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!

VIRG.

Happy the mortal, who has traced effects
To their firft caufe, caft fear beneath his feet,
And Death, and roaring Hell's voracious fires!

THANKLESS for favours from on high,
Man thinks he fades too foon ;
Though 'tis his privilege to die,
Would he improve the boon.

But he, not wife enough to fcan
His best concerns aright,

Would gladly stretch life's little span
To ages, if he might.