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III.

Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, "Tis because resentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

IV.

Rome shall perish-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

V.

Rome, for empire far renowned,

Tramples on a thousand states;

Soon her pride shall kiss the groundHark! the Gaul is at her gates!

VI.

Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name;

Sounds, not arms shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.

VII.

Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,

Armed with thunder, clad with wings,

Shall a wider world command.

VIII.

Regions Cæsar never knew

Thy posterity shall sway; Where his eagles never flew, None invincible as they.

IX.

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.

X.

She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow:
Rushed to battle, fought, and died;
Dying hurled them at the foe.

XI.

Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heaven awards the vengeance due;

Empire is on us bestowed,

Shame and ruin wait for you.

STANZAS

Subjoined to the Yearly Bill of Mortality of the Parish of

ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON, .

Anno Domini 1787.

Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,

Regumque turres.

HORACE.

Pale death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls, and hovels of the poor.

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run

The Nen's barge-laden wave,

All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave.

Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?

Did famine or did plague prevail,
That so much death appears?

No; these were vigorous as their sires,
Nor plague nor famine came;
This annual tribute death requires,
And never waves his claim.

Like crowded forest-trees we stand,
And some are marked to fall;

The axe will smite at God's command,

And soon shall smite us all.

Green as the bay-tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,

The gay, the thoughtless, I have seen,
I passed-and they were gone.

Read, ye that run, the solemn truth,
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

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

No medicine, though it often cure,
Can always baulk the tomb.

And Oh! that humble as my lot,
And scorned 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, for 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, heaven-ward 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 sun must rise no more;

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