No; these were vigorous as their sires, Nor plague nor famine came; This annual tribute Death requires, And never waives his claim. Like crowded forest-trees we stand, And some are mark'd to fall; And soon shall smite us all. Green as the bay tree, ever green, With its new foliage on, the aweful truth With which I charge my page! A worm is in the bud of youth, And at the root of age. Read, ye No present health can health insure For yet an hour to come; Can always balk the tomb. And scorn'd as is my strain, These truths, though known, too much forgot, I may not teach in vain. So Clerk with all his heart, for once to take his part, And answer all-Amen! Begs you ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1788. Quod udest, memento 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 Of 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. Ah self-deceived ! Could I prophetic say Who next is fated, and who next to fall, The rest might then seem privileged 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. Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn’d, Still need repeated warnings, and at last, A thousand aweful admonitions scorn'd, Die self-accused of life run all to waste? Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones ! admits no cure for guilt or sin ; Dewdrops 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 those sepulchres, instructors true, That, soon or late, death also is your lot, And the next opening grave may yawn you. for ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1789. -Plucidaque ibi demum morte quievit. VIRG. “O most delightful hour by man Experienced here below, His folly and his woe! 6 Worlds should not bribe me back to tread Again life's dreary waste, With all the gloomy past. My home henceforth is in the skies, Earth, seas, and sun, adieu ! I have no sight for you." Of faith's supporting rod, The bosom of his God. He was a man among the few Sincere on virtue's side ; To hourly use applied. He hated, hoped, and loved ; But when his heart had roved. For he was frail as thou or I, And evil felt within : And loathed the thought of sin. Such lived Aspasio; and at last from earth to heaven, The gulf of death triumphant pass'd, By gales of blessing driven. His joys be mine, each Reader cries, my last hour arrives : They shall be yours, my verse replies, Such only be your lives. ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1790. BUCHANAN, Ne commonentem recta sperne. 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. So your verse-man I, and Clerk, Yearly in my song proclaim And the foe's unerring aim. time I come, Publishing to all aloud, Soon the grave must be your home, And your only suit a shroud. |