Like crowded forest-trees we stand, Green as the bay-tree, ever green, The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen, Read, ye that run, the awful truth, No present health can health ensure No med'cine, though it oft can cure, And O! that humble as my lot, And scorn'd as is my strain, These truths, though known, too much forgot, I may not teach in vain. 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. Quod adest, memento Componere æquus. Cætera fluminis Improve the present hour, for all beside Is a mere feather on a torrent's tide. HOR COULD I, from Heav'n inspir'd, 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, Time then would seem more precious than the joys, Then doubtless many a trifler on the brink Of this world's-hazardous and headlong shore, 24* VOL II. Forc'd to a pause, would feel it good to think, Ah self-deceiv'd! Could I prophetick say Observe the dappled foresters, how light Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn'd, 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, And the next op'ning grave may yawn for you. ON A SIMILAR OCCASION. FOR THE YEAR 1789. -Placidaque ibi demum morte quievit. VIRG. There calm at length he breath'd his soul away. 'O MOST delightful hour by man 'Experienc'd 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 'My home henceforth is in the skies, So spake Aspasio, firm possess'd 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, That rule he priz'd, by that he fear'd, But when his heart had rov'd. For he was frail, as thou or I, And evil felt within : But, when he felt it, heav'd a sigh, Such liv'd Aspasio; and at last His joys be mine, each Reader cries, They shall be yours, my Verse replies, |