On A Similar Occasion. For The Year 1790.

Ne commonentem recta sperne.Buchanan.     Despise not my good counsel.     He who sits from day to day     Where the prisond 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, accustomd to the sound,     Wakes the sooner for his cry.     So your verse-man I, and clerk,     Yearly in my song proclaim     Death at handyourselves his mark     And the foes 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,     Wins no notice, wakes no fears.     Can a truth, by all confessd     Of such magnitude and weight,     Grow, by being oft impressd,     Trivial as a parrots prate?     Pleasures 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 interrd.     O then, ere the turf or tomb     Cover us from every eye,     Spirit of instruction, come,     Make us learn that we must die.