INLAT OLNEY.

teen moons saw smoothly run a's barge-laden wave,

life's rambling journey done, found their home, the grave.

i always) made more frail
oing years?

id plague prevail,

death appears?

an Cox, parish clerk of Northampton.

Thanks that we hear,-but O impart

To each desires sincere,

That we may listen with our heart,

And learn as well as hear.

For if vain thoughts the minds engage Of older far than we,

What hope, that, at our heedless age, Our minds should e'er be free?

Much hope, if thou our spirits take
Under thy gracious sway,

Who canst the wisest wiser make,
And babes as wise as they.

Wisdom and bliss thy word bestows, A sun that ne'er declines,

And be thy mercies show'r'd on those, Who plac'd us where it shines.

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.