Never to waste in sinful play Thanks that we hear,-but O impart That we may listen with our heart, For if vain thoughts the minds engage What hope, that, at our heedless age, Much hope, if thou our spirits take Wisdom and bliss thy word bestows, And be thy mercies shower'd on those STANZAS. SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON,* ANNO DOMINI 1787. Palida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, Pale death with equal foot strikes wide the door WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run * Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton. All these, life's rambling journey done, Was man (frail always) made more frail Did famine or did plague prevail, That so much death appears ? No; these were vigorous as their sires, 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 And O! that humble as my lot, These truths, though known, too much forgot, So prays your clerk with all his heart, 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 COULD I, from heaven inspired, as sure presage 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; Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink The rest might then seem privileged to play; 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 ON A SIMILAR OCCASION. FOR THE YEAR 1789. -Placidâque ibi demum morte quievit.-VIRG. "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 "My home henceforth is in the skies, So spake Aspasio, firm possess'd The bosom of his God. He was a man among the few And all his strength from Scripture drew, That rule he prized, by that he fear'd, But when his heart had roved. For he was frail as thou or I, But when he felt it, heaved a sigh, Such lived Aspasio; and at last His joys be mine, each reader cries, They shall be yours, my verse replies, |