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Death and judgment, Heaven and Hell

Thefe alone, fo often heard,

-No more move us than the bell

When some stranger is interred.

Oh then, ere the turf or tomb
Cover us from every eye,

Spirit of inftruction come,

Make us learn that we must die.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1792.

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!

VIRG.

Happy the mortal, who has traced effects
To their firft cause, caft fear beneath his feet,
And Death, and roaring Hell's voracious fires!

THANKLESS for favours from on high,
Man thinks he fades too foon;
Though 'tis his privilege to die,
Would he improve the boon.

But he, not wife enough to fcan
His beft concerns aright,

Would gladly ftretch life's little span
To ages, if he might.

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Galled by affliction's heavy chain,

And hopeless of repofe.

Strange fondness of the human heart,

Enamoured of its harm!

Strange world, that cofts it so much smart, And ftill 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 woe?

The cause is Confcience-Confcience oft

Her tale of guilt renews:

Her voice is terrible though soft,
And dread of death enfues.

Then anxious to be longer spared
Man mourns his fleeting breath:
All evils then feem light, compared
With the approach of Death.

'Tis judgment fhakes him; there's the fear,

That prompts the wish to stay:

He has incurred a long arrear,

And must despair to pay.

Pay-follow Chrift, and all is paid;
His death your peace insures;

Think on the grave where he was laid,
And calm defcend to yours.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1793..

De sacris autem hæc sit una sententia, ut conservéntur. CIC. DE LEG.

But let us all concur in this one sentiment, that things facred be inviolate.

He lives who lives to God alone,

And all are dead befide;

For other fource than God is none
Whence life can be supplied.

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 comprized,

Is falfely named, and no fuch thing,
But rather death disguised,

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