AN IMITATION OF SOME FRENCH VERSES. R ELENTLESS Time! deftroying power Who giv'ft to ev'ry flying hour To work fome new decay; Unheard, unheeded, and unfeen, And ruin Man, a nice machine By Nature form'd to fail. My change arrives; the change I meet, 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 slow behind, My ignorance cou'd once beguile, And fancy'd joys infpire; My errors cherish'd Hope to fmile But now experience fhews, the blifs Not worth the long impatient wifh, My youth met Fortune fair array'd, And might, perhaps, have well effay'd To make her gifts my own: But when I faw the bleffing show'r I left the chace, and own'd the Pow'r I pafs'd the glories which adorn The fplendid courts of kings, And while the perfons mov'd my fcorn, I rose to scorn the things. My manhood felt a vigʼrous fire, By love encreas'd the more; But years with coming years confpire In weakness fafe, the Sex I fee 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 rest; 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! I wifely change the scene within, To things that us'd to please; In Pain, Philofophy is Spleen, Α NIGHT PIECE B O N 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: Where Wisdom's furely taught below. Where once again the fpangled show The grounds which on the right afpire, "Time was, like thee they life poffeft, Thofe graves with bending ofier bound, That nameless heave the crumbled ground, Quick to the glancing thought difclofe 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 fteps 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 ftate) Adorn the Rich, or praise the Great; |