AN

ΙΜΙΤΑΤΙΟΝ

OF SOME

FRENCH VERSES.

R

ELENTLESS Time! destroying power
Whom stone and brass obey,

Who giv❜ft to ev'ry flying hour

To work fome new decay;

Unheard, unheeded, and unfeen,
Thy fecret faps prevail,

And ruin Man, a nice machine

By Nature form'd to fail.

My change arrives; the change I meet,
Before I thought it nigh.

My Spring, my years of pleasure fleet,
And all their beauties dye,

In age I fearch, and only find

A poor unfruitful gain,

Grave Wisdom stalking flow behind,

Opprefs'd with loads of pain.

My ignorance cou'd once beguile,

And fancy'd joys infpire;

My errors cherish'd Hope to smile
On newly-born Defire.

But now experience fhews, the bliss
For which I fondly fought,

Not worth the long impatient wifh,
And ardour of the thought.

My youth met Fortune fair array'd,
(In all her pomp she fhone)

And might, perhaps, have well effay'd

To make her gifts my own:

But when I faw the bleffing show'r

On fome unworthy mind,

I left the chace, and own'd the Pow'r
Was juftly painted blind.

I pafs'd the glories which adorn

The fplendid courts of kings,

And while the perfons mov'd my scorn, I rofe to fcorn the things.

My manhood felt a vig'rous fire,

By love encreas'd the more;

But years with coming years confpire
To break the chains I wore.

In weakness fafe, the Sex I see

With idle luftre shine;

For what are all their joys to me,

Which cannot now be mine?

But hold-I feel

my Gout decrease,

My troubles laid to reft;

And truths, which wou'd disturb my peace,
Are painful truths at best.

Vainly the time I have to roll
In fad reflection flies;

Ye fondling paffions of my foul!
Ye fweet deceits! arife.

I wifely change the scene within,

To things that us'd to please;

In Pain, Philofophy is Spleen,

In Health, 'tis only Eafe.

A

NIGHT-PIECE

B

ON

DE A T H.

Y the blue taper's trembling light,

No more I waste the wakeful night,

Intent with endless view to pore

The schoolmen and the fages o'er:
Their books from Wisdom widely stray,
Or point at best the longest way.
I'll feek a readier path, and go

Where Wisdom's furely taught below.
How deep yon azure dyes the sky!
Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lye,
While thro' their ranks in filver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide.
The flumb'ring breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is fmooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Defcends to meet our eyes below.

M

The grounds which on the right afpire,
In dimnefs from the view retire:
The left presents a place of graves,
Whofe wall the filent water laves.
That steeple guides thy doubtful fight
Among the livid gleams of night,
There pafs with melancholy state,
By all the folemn heaps of fate,
And think, as foftly-fad you tread
Above the venerable dead,

"Time was, like thee they life poffeft,
66 And time fhall be, that thou shalt rest.

Those graves with bending ofier bound,
That nameless heave the crumbled ground,
Quick to the glancing thought disclose
Where Toil and Poverty repofe.
The flat smooth stones that bear a name,
The chiffel's flender help to fame,
(Which ere our fett of friends decay
Their frequent steps may wear away;)
A middle Race of Mortals own,
Men, half ambitious, all unknown.

The marble tombs that rife on high, Whofe dead in vaulted arches lye, Whose pillars fwell with sculptur'd stones, Arms, angels, epitaphs and bones, Thefe (all the poor remains of state)

Adorn the Rich, or praife the Great;