For he was frail, as thou or I,

And evil felt within:

But, when he felt it, heav'd a sigh,

And loath'd the thought of sin.

Such liv'd Aspasio; and at last

Call'd up from Earth to Heav'n,

The gulf of death triumphant pass'd,

By gales of blessing driv'n.

His joys be mine, each Reader cries,
When my last hour arrives;

They shall be yours, my Verse replies,

Such only be your lives.

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36

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1790.

Ne commonentem recta sperne.

BUCHANAN.

Despise not my good counsel.

He who sits from day to day,

Where the prison'd lark is hung,

Heedless of his loudest lay,

Hardly knows that he has sung.

Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None, accustom'd to the sound,

Wakes the sooner for his cry.

So your verse-man I, and clerk,

Yearly in my song proclaim

Death at hand-yourselves his mark

And the foe's unerring aim.

But the monitory strain,

Oft repeated in your ears, Seems to sound too much in vain, Wins no notice, wakes no fears.

Can a truth, by all confess'd

Of such magnitude and weight, Grow, by being oft impress'd, Trivial as a parrot's prate?

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20

Pleasure's call attention wins,

Hear it often as we may;

New as ever seem our sins,

Though committed ev'ry day.

Death and Judgment, Heav'n and Hell-
These alone, so often heard,

No more move us than the bell,
When some stranger is interr'd.

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!

Happy the mortal, who has trac'd effects

VIRG.

To their first cause, cast Fear beneath his feet,
And Death, and roaring Hell's voracious fires!

THANKLESS for favours from on high, Man thinks he fades too soon;

Though 'tis his privilege to die,

Would he improve the boon.

But he, not wise enough to scan

His best concerns aright,

Would gladly stretch life's little span

To ages, if he might.