Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None, accustomed 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.

Duly at my time I come,
Publishing to all aloud-
Soon the grave must be your home,
And your only suit,, a shroud,

-

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 confessed

Of such magnitude and weight, Grow, by being oft expressed,

Trivial as a parrot's prate?

Pleasure's call attention wins,

Hear it often as we may;
New as ever seem our sins,
Though committed every day.

Ci

Death and judgment, Heaven and Hell→
These alone, so often heard,

No more move us than the bell
When some stranger is interred.

Oh then, ere the turf or tomb
Cover us from every eye,
Spirit of instruction, come,
Make us learn that we must die.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1792.

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes et inesorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avaril

VIRG.

Happy the mortal, who has traced effects
To their first cause, cast fear beneath his feet,
And Death, and roaring Hell's voracious firest

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:

To

ages

in a world of pain,
where he goes

To ages,

Galled by affliction's heavy chain,
And hopeless of repose.

Strange fondness of the human heart,
Enamoured of its harm!

Strange world, that costs it so much smart, And still has power to charm.

Whence has the world her magic power?
Why deem we death a foe?

Recoil from weary life's best hour,
And covet longer woe?

The cause is Conscience-Conscience oft
Her tale of guilt renews:

Her voice is terrible though soft,
And dread of death ensues.

Then anxious to be longer spared

Man mourns his fleeting breath: All evils then seem light, compared With the approach of death.

'Tis judgment shakes him; there's the fear,
That prompts the wish to stay:
He has incurred a long arrear,
And must despair to pay.

Pay!-follow Christ, and all is paid;
His death your peace insures;
Think on the grave where he was laid,
And calm descend to yours.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1793.

De sacris autem hæc sit una sententia, ut conserventur CIC. DE LEG. But let us all concur in this one sentiment, that things sacred be inviolate.

He lives who lives to God alone,
And all are dead beside;

For other source than God is none
Whence life can be supplied.

To live to God is to requite

His love as best we may
To make his precepts our delight,
His promises our stay.

But life, within a narrow ring
Of giddy joys comprized,
Is falsely named, and no such thing,
But rather death disguised.

Can life in them deserve the name,
Who only live to prove

For what poor toys they can disclaim
An endless life above?

Who, much diseased, yet nothing feel;
Much menaced, nothing dread;
Have wounds, which only God can heal,
Yet never ask his aid?

Who deem his house an useless place,
Faith, want of common sense;
And ardour in the Christian race,
A hypocrite's pretence?

Who trample order; and the day,
Which God asserts his own,
Dishonour with unhallowed play,
And worship chance alone?