Improve the present hour, for all befide
Is a mere feather on a torrent's tide.

OULD I, from Heaven infpired, as fure prefage

To whom the rising year fhall prove his
laft,

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 fentence, 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 mufic-drawing bow.

Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink
Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore,

Forced to a paufe, would feel it good to think, Told that his fetting fun muft rife no more.

Ah felf-deceived!

Could I prophetic fay

Who next is fated, and who next to fall,
The reft might then feem privileged to play;
But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to all.

Obferve the dappled forefters, how light

They bound and airy o'er the funny glade;
One falls the rest, wide scatter'd with affright,
Vanish at once into the darkest shade.

Had we their wifdom, fhould we, often warn'd,
Still need repeated warnings, and at last,
A thousand awful admonitions scorn'd,
Die felf-accused of life run all to wafte?

Sad wafte! for which no after-thrift atones.
The grave admits no cure for guilt or fin;
Dewdrops may deck the turf that hides the bones,
But tears of godly grief ne'er flow within.

Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught
Of all thofe fepulchres, inftructors true,
That, foon or late, death alfo 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 foul away.

MOST delightful hour by man
Experienced here below,

The hour that terminates his span,

His folly and his woe!

"Worlds fhould not bribe me back to tread

Again life's dreary waste,
To fee again my day o'erfpread
With all the gloomy past.

"My home henceforth is in the skies,
Earth, feas, and fun, adieu !

All heaven unfolded to my eyes,

I have no fight for you."

So fpake Afpafio, firm poffefs'd
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 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 fad 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 figh,
And loathed the thought of fin.

Such lived Afpafio; and at last
Call'd up
from earth to heaven,
The gulf of death triumphant pafs'd,
By gales of bleffing driven.

His joys be mine, each Reader cries,
When my laft 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 fperne. Buchanan.
Defpife not my good counfel.

E who fits from day to day

Where the prifon'd 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, accustom'd to the found,
Wakes the fooner for his cry.

So

your verse-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 confefs'd

Of fuch 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 fins, Though committed every day.

Death and Judgement, Heaven and HellThese alone, so often heard,

No more move us than the bell

When some stranger is interr'd.