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, 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 sun must rise no more.

Ah self-deceived! Could I 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;
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 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.

-Placidâque 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.

66

My home henceforth is in the skies,

Earth, seas, and sun, adieu!

All heaven unfolded to my eyes,

I have no sight for you."

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

Then breathed 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 loathed the thought of sin.

Such lived Aspasio; and at last
Call'd up from earth to heaven,
The 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 yours, my verse replies,
Such only be your lives.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1790.

Ne commonentem recta sperne.

BUCHANAN.

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 that 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.