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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.

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So your verse-man I, and clerk,

Yearly in my song 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 suit, a shroud.

But the monitory strain,

Oft repeated in your ears, Seems to sound too much in vain, Wins no notice, wakes no fears.

Can a truth by all confess'd

Of such 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 sins,

Though committed ev'ry day.

Death and Judgment, Heav'n and Hell— These alone, so often heard,

No more move us than the bell,

When some stranger is interr'd.

O then, ere the turf or tomb
Cover us from ev'ry eye,

Spirit of instruction come,

Make us learn, that we must die,

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1792.

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!

VIRG.

Happy the mortal, who has trac'd effects
To their first cause, cast fear beneath his feet,
And Death, and roaring Hell's voracious fires!

THANKLESS for favours from on high,
Man thinks he fades too soon;
Though 'tis his privilege to die,
Would he improve the boon.

But he, not wise enough to scan
His blest concerns aright,

Would gladly stretch life's little span
To ages, if he might.

To ages in a world of pain,

To where he goes

ages,

Gall'd by affliction's heavy chain,

And hopeless of repose.

Strange fondness of the human heart,

Enamour'd of it's harm!

Strange world, that costs it so much smart, And still has pow'r to charm.

Whence has the world her magic pow'r?

Why deem we death a foe?

Recoil from weary life's best hour,

And covet longer wo?

The cause is Conscience-Conscience oft

Her tale of guilt renews:
Her voice is terrible though soft,
And dread of death ensues.

Then anxious to be longer spar'd
Man mourns his fleeting breath:
All evils then seem light, compar'd
With the approach of Death.

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