Such lived Aspasio; and at last
Called up from earth to heaven,
The gulf of death triumphant passed,
By gales of blessing driven.
His joys be mine, each reader cries,
When my last hour arrives:
They shall be yours, my verse replies,
Such only be your lives.
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,
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,
Winds no notice, wakes no fears.
Can a truth, by all confessed
Of such magnitude and weight
Grow, by being oft impressed.
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.
O then, ere the turf or tomb
Cover us from every eye,
Spirit of instruction come,
Make us learn, that we must die.
Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!
Happy the mortal, who has traced effects
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 blest concerns aright,
Would gladly stretch life's little span
To ages, if he might.
To ages in a world of pain,
To ages, where he goes
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 wo?
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 ensures;
Think on the grave where he was laid,
And calm descends to yours.
De sacris autem hæc sit una sententia, ut conserventur.
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 inake 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.
FOR THE TOMB OF MR. HAMILTON.
PAUSE here, and think; a monitory rhyme
Demands one moment of thy fleeting time.
Consult life's silent clock, thy bounding vein;
Seems it to say-"Health here has long to reign ?"
Hast thou the vigour of thy youth? an eye
That beams delight? a heart untaught to sigh?
Yet fear. Youth ofttimes healthful and at ease,
Anticipates a day it never sees;
And many a time, like Hamilton's, aloud
Exclaims, "Prepare thee for an early shroud."
HERE lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose feet ne'er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman's halo'.
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