STANZAS Subjoined to the Yearly Bill of Mortality of the 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 fmoothly run All thefe, 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, Like crowded foreft-trees we ftand, Green as the bay-tree, ever green, The gay, the thoughtless, I have seen, Read, ye that run, the folemn truth, No present health can health infure No medicine, though it often cure, And Oh! that humble as my lot, And fcorned 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! Improve the prefent hour, for all befide COULD I, from heaven infpired, as fure prefage And item down the victims of the past; How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet, Time then would feem more precious than the joys, Then doubtless many a trifier, on the brink Ah felf-deceived! Could I prophetic fay Obferve the dappled forefters, how light They bound, and airy o'er the funny glade- Had we their wisdom, fhould we often warned, Sad wafte! for which no after-thrift atones. Learn then ye living! by the mouths be taught And the next opening grave may yawn for you. |