No present health can health insure For yet an hour to come; No med'cine, though it oft can cure, 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 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, Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink Ah self-deceiv'd! Could I prophetic say 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: 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. |