And whether being crazed or blind, Or feeking with a biased mind, Have not, it seems, difcerned it. Oh Friendship! if my foul forego STANZAS Subjoined to the Yearly Bill of Mortality of the Parish of ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON, Anno Domini 1787. Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, Regumque turres. HORACE. Pale death with equal foot ftrikes wide the door Of royal halls, and hovels of the poor. WHILE thirteen moons faw smoothly run All these, life's rambling journey done, Was man (frail always) made more frail Did famine or did plague prevail, That so much death appears? No; these were vigorous as their fires, Nor plague nor famine came; This annual tribute death requires, And never waves his claim. Like crowded forest-trees we ftand, The axe will fmite at God's command, Green as the bay-tree, ever green, The gay, the thoughtless, I have seen Read, ye that run, the folemn truth, No prefent health can health insure For yet an hour to come; No medicine, though it often cure, And Oh! that humble as my lot, And scorned as is my ftrain, These truths, though known, too much forgot, 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! ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1788. Quod adest, memento Componere æquus. Cætera fluminis Ritu feruntur. HOR. Improve the present hour, for all befide COULD I, from heaven inspired, as fure prefage To whom the rifing year fhall 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, Time then would feem moré precious than the joys, Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink Ah felf-deceived! Could I prophetic fay Obferve the dappled forefters, how light They bound, and airy o'er the funny gladeOne falls-the reft, wide-scattered with affright, Vanish at once into the darkest shade. |