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.

HORACE.

Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls, and hovels of the poor.

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.

No present health can health insure

For yet an hour to come;

No medicine, 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, though 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!

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1788.

Quod adest, memento

Componere æquus. Cætera fluminis

Ritu feruntur.

HORACE.

Improve the present hour, for all beside

Is a mere feather on a torrent's tide.

COULD I, from Heav'n inspir'd, as sure presage
To whom the rising year shall prove his last,
As I can number in my punctual page,

And item down the victims of the past;

How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet,
On which the press might stamp him next to die;
And, reading here his sentence, how replete
With anxious meaning, Heav'nward turn his eye.

Time then would seem more precious than the joys,
In which he sports away the treasure now;
And pray'r more seasonable than the noise
Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow.

Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink
Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore,
Forc'd to a pause, would feel it good to think,
Told that his setting sun must rise no more.

Ah self-deceiv'd! Could I prophetic say
Who next is fated, and who next to fall,
The rest might then seem privileg'd to play;
But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to ALL.

Observe the dappled foresters, how light

They bound and airy o'er the sunny glade---
One falls the rest, wide-scatter'd with affright,
Vanish at once into the darkest shade.

Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn'd,
Still need repeated warnings, and at last,
A thousand awful admonitions scorn'd,
Die self-accus'd of life run all to waste?

Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones;
The grave admits no cure for guilt or sin;
Dew-drops may deck the turf, that hides the bones,
But tears of godly grief ne'er flow within.

Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught Of all these sepulchres, instructors true,

That, soon or late, death also is your

lot,

And the next op'ning grave may yawn for you.