Till time and use affift the infant wretch,
By broken words and rudiments of speech,
His wants in plainer characters to show,
And paint more perfect figures of his woe;
Condemn'd to facrifice his childish years
To babbling ignorance, and to empty fears;
To pass the riper period of his age,
Acting his part upon a crowded stage ;
To lafting toils expos'd, and endless cares,
To open dangers, and to fecret fnares;
To malice which the vengeful foe intends,
And the more dangerous love of feeming friends.
His deeds examin'd by the people's will,
Prone to forget the good, and blame the ill;
Or fadly cenfur'd in their curs'd debate,
Who, in the fcorner's or the judge's feat,
Dare to condemn the virtue which they hate.
Or, would he rather leave this frantic scene;
And trees and beafts prefer to courts and men ;
In the remoteft wood and lonely grot

Certain to meet that worst of evils, Thought;
Different ideas to his memory brought,
Some intricate as are the pathless woods,
Impetuous feme as the defcending floods;
With anxious doubts, with raging paffions torn,
No fweet companion near, with whom to mourn;
He hears the echoing rock return his fighs;
And from himself the frighted Hermit flies.

Thus, through what path foe'er of life we rove,
Rage companies our hate, and grief our love.

Vex'd with the present moment's heavy gloom,
Why feek we brightness from the years to come?
Disturb'd and broken like a fick man's fleep,
Our troubled thoughts to diftant prospects leap,
Defirous ftill what flies us to o'ertake;
For hope is but the dream of those that wake:
But, looking back, we fee the dreadful train
Of woes a-new, which were we to fuftain,
We should refufe to tread the path again;
Still adding grief, ftill counting from the first ;
Judging the latest evils ftill the worst;
And, fadly finding each progreffive hour,
Heighten their number, and augment their
Till, by one countless fum of woes opprest,
Hoary with cares, and ignorant of rest,
We find the vital springs relax'd and worn,
Compell❜d our common impotence to mourn,

power,

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Thus through the round of age to childhood we return;
Reflecting find, that naked from the womb
We yesterday came forth; that in the tomb
Naked again we must to-morrow lie,

Born to lament, to labour, and to die.

Pafs we the ills which each man feels or dreads,
The weight or fallen or hanging o'er our heads;
The bear, the lion, terrors of the plain,
The fheepfold fcatter'd, and the fhepherd flain;
The frequent errors of the pathlefs wood,
The giddy precipice, and the dangerous flood;
The noisome peftilence, that in open war
Terrible marches through the mid-day air,

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And

And scatters death; the arrow that by night
Cuts the dank mift, and fatal wings its flight;
The billowing fnow, and violence of the fhower,
That from the hills difperfe their dreadful store, 130
And o'er the vales collected ruin pour;

The worm that gnaws the ripening fruit, sad guest;
Canker or locuft, hurtful to infest

The blade; while hufks elude the tiller's care,
And eminence of want diftinguishes the year.
Pafs we the flow difeafe, and fubtle pain,
Which our weak frame is deftin'd to fuftain ;
The cruel ftone with congregated war
Tearing his bloody way; the cold catarrh,
With frequent impulfe, and continued ftrife,
Weakening the wafted feats of irksome life;
The gout's fierce rack, the burning fever's rage,
The fad experience of decay; and Age,

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Herself the foreft ill; while Death and Eafe,
Oft' and in vain invok'd, or to appease

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Or end the grief, with hafty wings recede
From the vext patient and the fickly bed.

Nought shall it profit, that the charming fair,

Angelic, fofteft work of Heaven, draws near

To the cold fhaking paralytic hand,

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Senfelefs of Beauty's touch, or Love's command;

Nor longer apt or able to fulfil

The dictates of its feeble Master's will.

Nought fhall the pfaltry and the harp avail,

The pleafing fong, or well-repeated tale ;

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When

When the quick spirits their warm march forbear,
And numbing coldness has unbrac'd the ear.

The verdant rifing of the flowery hill,
The vale enamel'd, and the crystal rill,
The ocean rolling, and the fhelly shore,
Beautiful objects, fhall delight no more;
When the lax'd finews of the weaken'd eye
In watery damps or dim fuffufion lie.

Day follows night; the clouds return again
After the falling of the latter rain :
But to the aged-blind shall ne'er return
Grateful viciffitude: he ftill muft mourn
The fun, and moon, and every starry light,
Eclips'd to him, and loft in everlasting night.

Behold where Age's wretched victim lies;
See his head trembling, and his half-clos'd eyes;
Frequent for breath his panting bosom heaves;
To broken fleep his remnant fenfe he gives;
And only by his pains, awaking, finds he lives.
Loos'd by devouring Time, the filver cord
Diffever'd lies; unhonour'd from the board
The crystal urn, when broken, is thrown by;
And apter utenfils their place supply.
These things and thou must share one equal lot,
Die and be loft, corrupt and be forgot;
While ftill another and another race
Shall now fupply, and now give up the place :
From earth all came, to earth must all return;
Frail as the cord, and brittle as the urn.

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But

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But be the terror of these ills fupprefs'd;

;

And view we Man with health and vigour bleft.
Home he returns with the declining fun,
His deftin'd task of labour hardly done;
Goes forth again with the afcending ray,
Again his travel for his bread to pay,
And find the ill fufficient to the day.
Haply at night he does with horror shun
A widow'd daughter, or a dying fon :
His neighbour's offspring he to-morrow fees
And doubly feels his want in their increase :
The next day, and the next, he must attend
His foe triumphant, or his buried friend.
In every act and turn of life he feels
Public calamities, or household ills;
The due reward to just desert refus'd;
The truft betray'd, the nuptial bed abus'd;
The judge corrupt, the long-depending cause,
And doubtful iffue of mifconftrued laws;
The crafty turns of a dishonest state,

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And violent will of the wrong-doing great ;
The venom'd tongue, injurious to his fame,

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Which nor can Wisdom fhun, nor fair advice reclaim.
Efteem we these, my friends, event and chance,
Produc'd as atoms from their fluttering dance?
Or higher yet their effence may we draw
From deftin'd order and eternal law?
Again, my Mufe, the cruel doubt repeat:
Spring they, I fay, from accident, or fate?

Yet