The felon now attacks the miser's door,
And ruthless murder prints her steps with gore;
Dull fancy now her dreary path pursues,
Midst groves of cypress, and unhallow'd yews:
Poetic visions vanish from my brain,
And my pulse throbs as feebly as my strain.

What means this sudden, strange, unusual start,
This solemn something creeping to my heart?
Why fear to read a gracious God's decree?
Why fear to look on that I soon must be?
Can man be thoughtless of his end? or proud
Of charms that claim the coffin and the shroud ?
Come let him read these sculptur'd tombstones o'er,
Here fix his thoughts, and then be vain no more.

Let proud ambition learn this lesson hence,
Howe'er distinguish'd, dignify'd for sense ;
Whate'er the honour'd ensigns of renown,
The cap, the hood, the mitre or the crown,
Death levels all; .nor parts our pow'rs can save,
Milton himself must moulder in the grave,
Who sung and prov'd with inspiration strong,
The soul immortal, -in immortal song.

Hark! thus death speaks; ingenious sons of men,
Why boast the chissel, pencil, or the pen?
Will fame, who oft denies her children bread,
Deceive the living, discompose the dead?
vo; fame's a breath, it cannot worth supply,
Vor yield you comfort when you come to die;
n my dark realms a!l opposites agree,
The heirs of wealth and sons of poverty.

Whose timb is this? It says, 'tis Miri's, tomb, fuck'd from the world in 'beauty's fairest bloom;

Attend, ye fair, ye thoughtless, and ye gay!
For Mira dy'd upon the nuptial day!
The grave, cold bridegroom! clasp'd her in his arm,
And kindred worms destroy'd her pleasing charms.
In yonder tomb the old Avaro lies;
(Once he was rich, the world esteem'd him wise)
Schemes unaccomplish'd labour'd in his mind,
And all his thoughts were to this world confin'd;
Death came unlook'd for, from his grasping hand,
Down dropt his bags, and mortgages of lands.

Beneath this sculptor'd pompous marble stone
Lies youthful Floris aged twenty-one :
Cropp'd like a flower he wither'd in his bloom
Tho' flatt'ring life had promis'd years to come.
Ye silken sons, ye Florio's of the age! :
Who tread in giddy maze, life's flow'ry stage,
Mark here the end of man, in Florio see,
What you and all the sons of mirth must be.
There low in dust the vain Hortensio lies,
Whose splendor was beheld with envious eyes;
Titles and arms his pompous marble grace,
With a long hist'ry of his noble race:
Still after death his vanity survives,
And on his tomb, all of Hortensio lives!

Around me, as I turn'd my wand'ring eyes,
Unnumber'd graves in awful prospect rise,
Whose stones say only when their owners dy'd,
If young or aged, and to whom ally'd ;
On others, pompous epitaphs are spread,
In memory of the virtues of the dead;
Vain waste of praise ! since flatt'ring or sincere,
I he judgment day alone will make appear.

How silent is this little spot of ground! How melancholy looks each object round! Here man dissolv'd, in scatter'd ruin lies So fast asleep—as if no more to rise ; *Tis strange to think, how these dead bones can live, Leap into form, and with new heat revive! Or how this trodden earth to life shall wake, Know its owa place, its former figure take; But whence these doubts: when the last trumpet sounds, Thro'heav'n's expanse, to earth's remotest bounds, The dead shall quit these tenements of clay, . And view again the long extinguish'd day; Cheer'd with this pleasing hope, I safely trust Th' Almighty's pow's to raise me from the dust; On his unfailing promises rely,

And all the horrors of the grave defy; | Death, where's thy sting? Grave, where's thy vic

tory?

po heav hall quit thong exting