Then suddenly regain the prize,
And flash thanksgivings to the skies!

O Queen of Albion, queen of isles !
Since all thy tears were changed to smiles,
The eyes, that never saw thee, shine
With joy not unallied to thine;
Transports not chargeable with art
Illume the land's remotest part,
And strangers to the air of courts,
Both in their toils and at their sports,
The happiness of answer'd prayers,
That gilds thy features, show in theirs.

If they who on thy state attend,
Awe-struck, before thy presence bend,
'Tis but the natural effect
Of grandeur that ensures respect;
But she is something more than queen
Who is beloved where never seen.

HYMN,

FOR THE USE OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AT OLNEY.

HEAR, Lord, the song of praise and prayer,

In heaven thy dwelling place, From infants made the public care,

And taught to seek thy face.

Thanks for thy word, and for thy day,

And grant us, we implore, Never to waste in sinful play

Thy holy sabbaths more.

Thanks that we hear,-but O impart

To each desires sincere,
That we may listen with our heart,

And learn as well as hear.

For if vain thoughts the minds engage

Of older far than we, What hope, that, at our heedless age,

Our minds should e'er be free?

Much hope, if thou our spirits take

Under thy gracious sway,
Who canst the wisest wiser make,

And babes as wise as they.

Wisdom and bliss thy word bestows,

A sun that ne'er declines, And be thy mercies shower'd on those

Who placed us where it shines.

STANZAS

SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL or MORTALITY OF THE PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON, *

ANNO DOMINI 1787.

HORACE.

Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,

Regumque turres.
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.

* Composed for Jobn Cox, parish clerk of Northampton. Like crowded forest trees we stand,

And some are mark'd 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, have I seen,

I pass'd—and they were gone.

Read,

ye
that

run, the awful 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 oft can cure,

Can always balk the tomb.

And OT that humble as my lot,

And scorn'd 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!

VOL. VII.

T

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1788.

Quod adest, memento
Componere æquus. Cætera fluminis
Ritu feruntur.
Improve the present hour, for all beside
Is a mere feather on a torrent's tide.

HORACE,

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
or 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.