AN IMITATION OF SOME FRENCH VERSES.

R

ELENTLESS Time! deftroying power,
Whom stone and brafs obey,

Who giv'ft to every flying hour
To work fome new decay;

Unheard, unheeded, and unseen,
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 fpring, my years of pleasure fleet,
And all their beauties die.

In age I fearch, aud only find
poor unfruitful gain,

A

Grave wisdom stalking flow behind,

Opprefs'd with loads of pain.

My ignorance could 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

My youth met fortune fair array'd,
In all her pomp she shone,
And might perhaps have well effay'd,
To make her gifts my own:

But when I faw the bleffings fhower
On fome unworthy mind,

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

I pass'd the glories which adorn
The fplendid courts of kings,
And while the perfons mov'd my fcorn,
I rofe to fcorn the things.

My manhood felt a vigorous fire
By love encreas'd the more;

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

In weakness fafe, the fex 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 reft,

And truths which would 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

You claim the body, you the foul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole.
Thus with the Gods debate began,
On fuch a trivial caufe, as man.
And can celeftial tempers rage?

Quoth Virgil, in a later age.

As thus they wrangled, Time came by ;
(There's none that paint him such as I,
For what the fabling Ancients fung
Makes Saturn old, when Time was young.)
As yet his winters had not fhed
Their filver honours on his head;
He just had got his pinions free,
From his old fire, Eternity.
A ferpent girdled round he wore,
The tail within the mouth, before;
By which our almanacks are clear
That learned Egypt meant the year.
A staff he carry'd, where on high
A glass was fix'd to measure by,
As amber boxes made a show
For heads of canes an age ago.

His veft, for day and night, was py'd;'
A bending fickle arm'd his fide;

And Spring's new months his train adorn
The other Seafons were unborn.

Known by the gods, as near he draws,
They make him umpire of the cause.
O'er a low trunk his arm he laid,
Where fince his hours a dial made;

There pafs with melonchaly ftate,

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,

And time ball be, that thou shalt reft...

Those with bending ofier bound,

That nameless heave the crumbled ground,
Quick to the glancing thought disclose,
Where toil and poverty repofe.

The flat fmooth ftones that bear a name,
The chiffel's slender help to fame
(Which ere our fet of friends decay
Their frequent fteps may wear away);,
A middle race of mortals own,,
Men, half ambitious, all unknown..

The marble tombs that rise on high,
Whofe dead in vaulted arches lie,
Whofe pillars fwell with fculptur'd stones,
Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones,
These, all the poor remains of state,
Adorn the rich, or praise the great ;-
Who, while on earth in fame they live,
Are fenfelefs of the fame they give.

Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades,
The bursting earth unveils the shades!
All flow, and wan, and wrap'd with shrouds,
They rife in vifionary crouds,

And all with fober accent cry,
Think, mortal, what it is to die.

Now

Now from yon black and funeral yew,
That bathes the charnel-houfe with dew,
Methinks, I hear a voice begin;

(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din,
Ye tolling clocks, no time refound
O'er the long lake and midnight ground!)
It fends a peal of hollow groans,
Thus fpeaking from among the bones.
When men my scythe and darts supply,
How great a King of fears am I!

They view me like the last of things;
They make, and then they draw, my strings.
Fools! if you lefs provok'd your fears,
No more my fpectre-form appears.
Death's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God:
A port of calms, a state to cafe
From the rough rage of swelling feas.
Why then, thy flowing fable ftoles,
Deep pendant cyprefs, mourning poles,
Loofe fcarfs to fall athwart thy weeds,
Long palls, drawn hearfes, cover'd steeds,
And plumes of black, that, as they tread,
Nod o'er the 'fcutcheons of the dead?

Nor can the parted body know,
Nor wants the foul, thefe forms of woe;
As men who long in prifon dwell,
With lamps that glimmer round the cell,
Whene'er their fuffering years are run,
Spring forth to greet the glittering fun:

Such