aze,
And husband what remains, a scanty space.
Few fleeting hours, alas! have pass'd away,
Since a weak infant in the lap I lay;
For what is human life but one uncertain day!
Now hid by flying vapours, dark and cold,
And brighten'd now with gleams of sunny gold,
That mock the gazer's eye with gaudy show,
And leave the victim to substantial woe:
Yet hope can live beneath the stormy sky,
And empty pleasures have their pinions ply;
And frantic pride exalts the lofty brow,
Nor marks the snares of death that lurk below.
Uncertain, whether now the shaft of fate
Sings on the wind, or heaven prolongs my date.
I see my hours run on with cruel speed,
And in my doom the fate of all I read;
A certain doom, which nature's self must feel
When the dread sentence checks the mundane wheel.
Go! court the smiles of Hope, ye thoughtless crew!
Her fairy scenes disclose an ample view
To brainless men. But Wisdom o'er the field
Casts her keen glance, and lifts her beamy shield
To meet the point of Fate, that flies afar,
And with stern vigilance expects the war.
Perhaps in vain my admonitions fall,
Yet still the Muse repeats the solemn call;
Nor can she see unmoved your senses drown'd
By Circe's deadly spells in sleep profound.
She cannot see the flying seasons roll
In dread succession to the final goal,
And sweep the tribes of men so fast away,
To Stygian darkness or eternal day,
With unconcern.--Oh! yet the doom repeal
Before your callous hearts forget to feel;
E'er Penitence foregoes her fruitless toil,
Or hell's black regent claims his human spoil
Oh, haste! before the fatal arrows fly
That send you headlong to the nether sky
When down the gulf the sons of folly go
In sad procession to the seat of woe!
Thus deeply musing on the rapid round
Of planetary speed, in thought profound
I stood, and long bewail'd my wasted hours,
My vain afflictions, and my squander'd powers:
When, in deliberate march, a train was seen
In silent order moving o'er the green;
A band that seem'd to hold in high disdain
The desolating power of Time's resistless reign:
Their names were hallow'd in the Muse's song,
Wafted by fame from age to age along,
High o'er oblivion's deep, devouring wave,
Where millions find an unrefunding grave.
With envio