HYMN

FOR THE USE OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
AT OLNEY.

HEAR, Lord, the song of praise and pray'r
In Heav'n, thy dwelling place,
From infants made the public care,
And taught to seek thy face.

Thanks for thy word, and for thy day,
And grant us, we implore,

Never to waste in sinful play

Thy holy sabbaths more.

Thanks that we hear!-But O impart

To each desires sincere,

That we may listen with our heart,

And learn as well as hear.

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For if vain thoughts the minds engage

Of older far than we,

What hope, that at our heedless age,
Our minds should e'er be free?

Much hope, if thou our spirits take
Under thy gracious sway,

Who canst the wisest wiser make,
And babes as wise as they.

Wisdom and bliss thy word bestows,
A sun that ne'er declines,

And be thy mercies show'r'd on those,

Who plac'd us where it shines.

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.

Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door

Of royal halls, and hovels of the poor!

HORACE,

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?

* Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton.

No; these were vig'rous as their sires,
Nor plague nor famine came;
This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waves 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 it's new foliage on,

The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen,
I pass'd—and they were gone.

Read, ye that run, the awful truth,
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,

And at the root of age.

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No present health can health insure

For yet an hour to come;

No med'cine, though it oft can cure,
Can always baulk the tomb.

And O! that, humble as my lot,

And scorn'd as is my strain,

These truths, tho' 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!

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