His joys be mine, each Reader cries, They fhall be yours, my Verse replies, ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1790. Ne commonentem recla 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 None accuftomed to the found, So your verfe-man I, and clerk, Yearly in my fong proclaim Death at hand-yourselves his markAnd 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 fhroud. But the monitory ftrain, Oft repeated in your ears, 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, New as ever feem our fins, Though committed every day. Death and Judgment, Heaven and Hell→ These alone, so often heard, No more move us than the bell When fome stranger is interred. Oh then, ere the turf or tomb ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1792. Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari! VIRE. Happy the mortal, who has traced effects THANKLESS for favours from on high, Man thinks he fades too foon; Though 'tis his privilege to die, But he, not wife enough to fcan Would gladly ftretch life's little span To ages in a world of pain, To ages, where he goes Galled by affliction's heavy chain, And hopeless of repose. Strange fondness of the human heart, Enamoured of its harm! Strange world, that cofts 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 beft hour, And covet longer woe? The cause is Confcience-Confcience oft Her tale of guilt renews: Then anxious to be longer fpared With the approach of Death. |