No present health can health ensure
For yet an hour to come;

No med'cine, though it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb.

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
Ritu feruntur.-Hor.

Improve the present hour, or 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, heavenward turn his eye!
Time then would seem more precious than the joys
In which he sports away the treasure now;
And prayer more seasonable than the noise
Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow.
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 sur must rise no more.

Ah, self-deceived! Could 1 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-
One falls the rest, wide-scatter'd with affright,
Vanish at once into the darkest shade.

Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn'd,
Still need repeated warnings, and at last,
A thousand awful admonitions scorn'd,
Die self-accused of life run all to waste?

Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones:
The grave admits no cure for guilt or sin;
Dew-drops may deck the turf, that hides the bones,
But tears of godly grief ne're flow within.

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.

"O 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

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.'

Do spake Aspasio, firm possess'd
Of faith's supporting rod,

Then breath'd his soul into its rest
The bosom of his God.

He was a man among the few
Sincere on virtue's side;

And all his strength from Scripture drew,
To hourly use applied.

That rule he prized, by that he fear'd,

He hated, hoped, and loved;

Nor ever frown'd, or sad appear'd,
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
And loath'd the thought of sin.

Such lived Aspasio; and at last
Call'd up from earth to heaven,
That gulf of death triumphant pass'd,
By gales of blessing driven.

His joys be mine, each reader cries
When my last hour arrives;

They shall be ycurs, my Verse replies,
Such only be your lives.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1790.

Ne commonentem recta sperne.-Buchana013-«
Despise not my good counsel.

He who sits from day to day,
Where the prison'd lark is hung,
Heedless of his loudest lay,

Hardly knows what he has sung.

Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None, accustom'd to the sound,
Wakes the sooner for his cry.

So your verse-man I, and clerk,
Yearly in my song 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 suit, a shroud.

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 confess'd

Of such magnitude and weight, Grow, by being oft impress'd, Trivial as a parrot's prate?

Pleasure's call attention wins,

Hear it often as we may; New as ever seem our sins, Though committed every day.

Death and Judgment, Heaven and Hell-
These alone, so often heard,
No more move us than the bell,

When some stranger is interr❜d.

O then, ere the turf or tomb

Cover us from every eye,

Spirit of instruction come,

Make us learn that we must 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 first cause, cast fear beneath his feet,
And Death, and roaring Hell's voracious fires!

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

But he, not wise enough to scan
His bless'd concerns aright,
Would gladly stretch life's little span
To ages if he might.

To ages in a world of pain,

To ages, where he goes,

Gall'd by affliction's heavy chain,

And hopeless of repose.

Strange fondness of the human heart,
Enamour'd of its harm!

Strange world! that costs it so much smart
And still has power to charm.

Whence has the world her magic power ?

Why deem we death a foe?

Recoil from weary life's best hour,

And covet longer woe?

The cause is Conscience-Conscience oft
Her tale of guilt renews:

Her voice is terrible though soft,
And dread of death ensues.

Then, anxious to be longer spared,

Man mourns his fleeting breath: And evils then seem light, compared With the approach of Death.