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 ensure
For yet an hour to come;

No medicine, though it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb.

And oh! that humble as my lot,
And scorned 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 1790.

Ne commonentem recta sperne.-BUCHANAN.
Despise not my good counsel.

He who sits from day to day
Where the prisoned 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,

M

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.

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 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 comprised,

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 a 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?

If scorn of God's commands, impressed
On word and deed, imply

The better part of man unblessed
With life that cannot die;

Such want it: and that want, uncured
Till man resigns his breath,
Speaks him a criminal, assured
Of everlasting death.

Sad period to a pleasant course!
Yet so will God repay

Sabbaths profaned without remorse,

And Mercy cast away.

POEMS HUMOROUS AND

PLAYFUL.