TO WILLIAM BLACKBOURN, ESQ.
Casimir. lib. ii. od. 2. Imitated.
Quæ tegit canas modo Bruma valles, &c.
I
Mark how it snows! how fast the valley fills!
And the sweet groves the hoary garment wear;
Yet the warm sun-beams bounding from the hills
Shall melt the veil away, and the young green appear.
II
But when old age has on your temples shed
Her silver-frost, there's no returning sun;
Swift flies our autumn, swift our summer's fled,
When youth, and love, and spring, and golden joys are gone.
III
Then cold, and winter, and your aged snow,
Stick fast upon you; not the rich array,
Not the green garland, nor the rosy bough
Shall cancel or conceal the melancholy gray.
IV
The chase of pleasures is not worth the pains,
While the bright sands of health run wasting down;
And honour calls you from the softer scenes,
To sell the gaudy hour for ages of renown.
V
'Tis but one youth, and short, that mortals have,
And one old age dissolves our feeble frame;
But there's a heav'nly art t'elude the grave,
And with the hero-race immortal kindred claim.
VI
The man that has his country's sacred tears
Bedewing his cold hearse, has liv'd his day:
Thus, Blackbourn, we should leave our names our heirs;
Old time and waning moons sweep all the rest away.
