STANZAS

SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON1,

ANNO DOMINI 1787.

Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
Regumque turres.

HORACE.

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 waives his claim.

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 aweful truth
With which I charge my page!

A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

1 Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton.

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 oh 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!

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!
The grave 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 for you.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1789.

-Placidaque ibi demum morte quievit.

VIRG.

There calm at length he breathed his soul away.

"Worlds should not bribe me back to tread

Again life's dreary waste,

To see again my day o'erspread
With all the gloomy past.

"My home henceforth is in the skies,
Earth, seas, and sun, adieu!
All heaven unfolded to my eyes,

I have no sight for you.'

So spake Aspasio, firm possess'd
Of faith's supporting rod
Then breathed his soul into its rest,
The bosom of his God.

He was a man among the few

Sincere on virtue's side;

And all his strength from Scripture drew,
To hourly use applied.

That rule he prized, by that he fear'd,
He hated, hoped, and loved;

Nor ever frown'd, or sad appear'd,

But when his heart had roved.

For he was frail as thou or I,
And evil felt within :

But when he felt it, heaved a sigh,
And loathed the thought of sin.

Such lived Aspasio; and at last
Call'd up from earth to heaven,
The gulf of death triumphant pass'd,
By gales of blessing driven."

His joys be mine, each Reader cries,
When my last hour arrives :

They shall be yours, my verse replies,
Such only be your lives.

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 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

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 confess'd

Of such magnitude and weight, Grow, by being oft impress'd, 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.