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The scourge he let fall from his hand,

With blood of his subjects imbrued. I saw him both sicken and die,

And the moment the monster expir'd Heard shouts that ascended the sky From thousands with rapture inspir'd.

Awaking, how could I but muse

At what such a dream should betide?

But soon my ear caught the glad news
Which serv'd my weak thought for a guide-

That Britannia, renown'd o'er the waves

For the hatred she ever has shown

To the black-sceptred rulers of slaves,

Resolves to have none of her own.

VERSES

PRINTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE

YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY

OF THE TOWN OF NORTHAMPTON,

Dec. 21, 1787.

Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres.

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?

No; these were vigorous 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 its 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.

II.

2 E

No present health can health insure

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 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!

*John Cox, Parish Clerk of Northampton.

INSCRIPTION

FOR THE TOMB OF

MR. HAMILTON.

PAUSE here, and think: a monitory rhime
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? an heart untaught to sigh?— Yet fear. Youth, ofttimes healthful and at ease,

Anticipates a day it never sees,

And many a tomb, like Hamilton's, aloud

Exclaims, "Prepare thee for an early shroud!"

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