No present health can health.infure
For yet an hour to come;

No med'cine, though it often cure,
Can always balk the tomb.

And oh! that (humble as my lot,
And scorn'd as is my ftrain *)

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 -.

Virg.

-Placidiq; ibi demum morte quievit.
Then calm at length he breath'd his foul away.

"Он most delightful hour by man "Experienc'd here below;

"The hour that terminates his span, "His folly and his woe.

"Worlds should not bribe me back to tread "Again life's dreary waste;

"To see my days again o'erspread "With all the gloomy paft.

"My home, henceforth, is in the skies,
"Earth, feas, and fun adieu;
" All heaven unfolded to my eyes,
"I have no fight for you."

Thus spake Afpatio, firm poffeft
Of faith's fupporting rod;
Then breath'd his foul into its reft,
The bofom of his God.

He was a man among the few

Sincere on Virtue's side,

And all his strength from scripture drew, To hourly ufe apply'd.

That rule he priz'd, by that he fear'd,
He hated, hop'd, and lov'd,
Nor ever frown'd, or fad appear'd,
But when his heart had rov'd.

For he was frail as thou or I,

And evil felt within,

But when he felt it, heav'd a figh,
And loath'd the thought of fin.

Such liv'd Afpatio, and at last,

Call'd up from earth to heav'n,
The gulph of death triumphant pass'd,
By gales of blessing driven.

His joys be MINE, each reader cries,
When my laft hour arrives:
They shall be yours, my verse replies,

Such ONLY be your lives.

FOR THE TOMB OF

Mr. HAMILTON.

PAUSE here, and think: a monitory rhime
Demands one moment of thy fleeting time.

Confult Life's filent clock, thy bounding vein;
Seems it to say-Health, here, has long to reign?
Haft thou the vigour of thy youth? an eye
That beams delight? an heart untaught to figh? -
Yet fear. Youth, ofttimes, healthful and at ease,
Anticipates a day it never fees,
And many a tomb, like Hamilton's, aloud
Exclaims, "Prepare thee for an early shroud!"

THE POPLAR-FIELD.

THE poplars are fell'd, farewell to the shade And the whispering found of the cool colonnade; The winds play no longer and fing in the leaves, Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.

Twelve years have elaps'd since I last took a view
Of my favourite field and the bank where they grew;
And now in the grafs behold they are laid,
And the tree is my feat that once lent me a shade.

The blackbird has fled to another retreat,
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat,
And the scene where his melody charm'd me before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.

My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another fuch grove shall arife in its stead.