HYMN FOR THE USE OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL HEAR, Lord, the song of praise and pray'r Thanks for thy word, and for thy day, 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. 10 For if vain thoughts the minds engage Of older far than we, What hope, that at our heedless age, Much hope, if thou our spirits take Who canst the wisest wiser make, Wisdom and bliss thy word bestows, 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, Like crowded forest-trees we stand, The axe will smite at God's command, And soon shall smite us all. Green as the bay-tree, ever green, The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen, Read, ye that run, the awful truth, And at the root of age. 10 20 No present health can health insure For yet an hour to come; No med'cine, though it oft can cure, 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! 30 36 |