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 prisoned 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, accustomed 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.
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 confessed

Of such magnitude and weight Grow, by being oft impressed,

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 every day. Death and Judgment, Heaven and Hell

These alone, so often heard, No more move us than the bell,

When some stranger is interred.

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 ages, where he goes
Galled by affliction's heavy chain,

And hopeless of repose.
Strange fondness of the human heart,

Enamoured of its harm!
Strange world, that costs it so much smart,

And still has power to charm. Whence has the world her magic power ?

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 spared,

Man mourns his fleeting breath: All evils then seem light, compared

With the approach of Death. 'Tis judgment shakes hîm; there's the fear,

That prompts the wish to stay;
He has incurred a long arrear,

And must despair to pay.
Pay!—follow Christ, and all is paid:

His death your peace ensures ;
Think on the grave where he was laid,

And calm descend to yours.

O then, ere the turf or tomb

Cover us from every eye, Spirit of instruction come,

Make us learn, that we must die.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.

FOR THE YEAR 1793. De sacris autem hæc sit una sententia, ut conserventur,

Cic. de Leg. But let us all concur in this one sentiment, that things sacred be inviolate.

He lives, who lives to God alone,

And all are dead beside;
For other source than God is none

Whence life can be supplied.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.

FOR THE YEAR 1792. Felir, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causos, Alque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!

Virg. Happy the mortal, who has traced effects To their first cause, casi fear beneath his feet, And Death and roaring Hell's voracious fires ! THANKLESS for favours from on high,

Man thinks he fades too soon;

To live to God is to requite

His love as best we may;
To make his precepts our delight,

His promises our stay.
But life, within a narrow ring

Of giddy joys comprised,

Such want it, and that want, uncured

Till man resigns his breath, Speaks him a criminal, assured

Of everlasting death.

Sad period to a pleasant course!

Yet so will God repay Sabbaths profaned without remorse,

And mercy cast away.

Eight years and five round rolling moons

He thus saw steal away,
Dozing out all his idle noons,

And every night at play.
I kept him for his humour's sake,

For he would oft beguile
My heart of thoughts that made it ache,

And force me to a smile.
But now beneath his walnut shade

He finds his long last home,
And waits, in snug concealment laid,

Till gentler Puss shall come.
He, still more aged, feels the shocks,

From which no care can save,
And, partner once of Tiney's box,

Must soon partake his grave.

INSCRIPTION

FOR THE TOMB OF MR. HAMILTON.

Pause here, and think; a monitory rhyme
Demands one moment of thy fleeting time.

Consult life's silent clock, thy bounding vein;
Seems it to say—“Health here has long to reign?"
Hast thou the vigour of thy youth? an eye
That beams delight? a heart untaught to sigh?
Yet fear. Youth ofttimes healthful and at ease,
Anticipates a day it never sees;
And many a tomb, like Hamilton's, aloud
Exclaims, “Prepare thee for an early shroud.”

EPITAPHIUM ALTERUM.

EPITAPH ON A HARE.

Hic etiam jacet, Qui totum novennium vixit,

Puss. Siste paulisper, Qui præteriturus es, Et tecum sic reputaHunc neque canis venaticus, Nec plumbum missile,

Nec laqueus,

Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue,

Nor swifter greyhound follow, Whose feet ne'er tainted morning dew,

Nor ear heard huntsman's hallo'.

Let no low thought suggest the prayer,

Oh! grant, kind heaven, to me,
Long as I draw ethereal air,

Sweet Sensibility.
Where'er the heavenly nymph is seen,

With lustre-beaming eye,
A train, attendant on their queen,

(Her rosy chorus) fly.
The jocund Loves in Hymen's band,

With torches ever bright,
And generous Friendship hand in hand,

With Pity's watery sight.
The gentler virtues too are joined,

In youth immortal warm,
The soft relations, which, combined,

Give life her every charm.
The arts come smiling in the close,

And lend celestial fire,
The marble breathes, the canvass glows,

The muses sweep the lyre.
“Still may my melting bosom cleave

To sufferings not my own,
And still the sigh responsive heave,

Where'er is heard a groan.
" So Pity shall take Virtue's part,

Her natural ally,
And fashioning my softened heart,

Prepare it for the sky.”
This artless vow may heaven receive,

And you, fond maid, approve;
So may your guiding angel give

Whate'er you wish or love:
So may the rosy fingered hours

Lead on the various year,
And every joy, which now is yours,

Extend a larger sphere;
And suns to come, as round they wheel,

Your golden moments bless, With all a tender heart can feel,

Or lively fancy guess.

As if the noblest of the feathered kind
Were but for battle and for death designed;
As if the consecrated hours were meant
For sport, to minds on cruelty intent;
It chanced (such chances Providence obey)
He met a fellow-labourer on the way,
Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed;
But now the savage temper was reclaimed.
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;
For all plead well who plead the cause of grace:
His iron-heart with Scripture he assailed,
Wooed him to hear a sermon, and prevailed.
His faithful how the mighty preacher drew.
Swift, as the lightning-glance, the arrow flew.
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,

To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his sins, and wondered he should feel.
Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal.

Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies !
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day which washed with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learned, by his altered speech-the change divine
Laughed when they should have wept, and swore

the day Was nigh, when he would swear as fast as they. “No, (said the penitent,) such words shall share This breath no more; devoted now to prayer. O! if thou see'st (thine eye the future sees) That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these; Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel, Ere yet this heart relapses into steel; Now take me to that Heaven I once defied, Thy presence, thy embrace!"-He spoke and died.

TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON,

ON HIS RETURN FROM RAMSGATE.

That ocean you have late surveyed,

Those rocks I too have seen,
But I, afllicted and dismayed,

You tranquil and serene.
You from the flood-controlling steep

Saw stretched before your view,
With conscious joy, the threatening deep,

No longer such to you.
To me, the waves that ceaseless broke

Upon the dangerous coast,
Hoarsely and ominously spoke

Of all my treasure lost.
Your sea of troubles you have past,

And found the peaceful shore;
I, tempest-tossed, and wrecked at last,

Come home to port no more.