No present health can health insure

For yet an hour to come;

No med'cine, though it oft can cure,
Can always baulk the tomb.

And O! that, humble as my lot,

And scorn'd as is my strain,

These truths, tho' 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!

30

COULD I, from Heav'n inspir'd, 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, Heav'nward turn his eye!

10

Time then would seem more precious than the joys,
In which he sports away the treasure now;
And pray'r 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,
Forc'd to a pause, would feel it good to think,
Told that his setting sun must rise no more.

Ah self-deceiv'd! Could I prophetic say
Who next is fated, and who next to fall,

The rest might then seem privileg'd 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.

21

BILL OF MORTALITY.

Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn'd,

Still need repeated warnings, and at last,

A thousand awful admonitions scorn'd,

Die self-accus'd of life run all to waste?

405

30

Sad waste! for which no after thrift atones:
The grave admits no cure for guilt or sin;
Dew-drops 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 op'ning grave may yawn for

you.

"O most delightful hour by man

"Experienc'd here below,

"The hour that terminates his span,

"His folly and his wo!

"Worlds should not bribe me back to tread

66

Again life's dreary waste,

"To see again my day o'erspread

"With all the gloomy past.