Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

A

PRACTICAL DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

DEATH.

BY WILLIAM SHERLOCK, D. D.

FROM THE SEVENTEENTH GLASGOW EDITION.

ALBANY :

PRINTED AND SOLD BY PRATT & DOUBLEDAY,

No. 1. LION-STREET.

[blocks in formation]

To DR. SHERLOCK, ON HIS DISCOURSE CON

CERNING DEATH.

FORGIVE the muse, who, in unhallow'd strains, The saint one moment from his God detains. For sure whate'er you do, whate'er you are, 'Tis all but one good work, one constant prayer. Forgive her, and intreat that God to whom Thy favored vows with kind acceptance come, To raise her notes to that sublime degree, That suits a song of piety and thee.

Wond'rous good man! Whose labors may repel The force of sin, may stop the rage of hell : Who, like the baptist, from thy God was sent, The crying voice to bid the world repent.

Thee youth shall study; and no more engage
His flattering wishes for uncertain age;

No more, with fruitless care, and cheated strife,
Chase fleeting pleasure through the maze of life;
Finding the wretched all he here can have,
But present food, and but a future grave;
Each, great as Philip's victor son, shall view
This abject world, and weeping ask a new.
Decrepid age shall read thee, and confess
Thy labors can assuage where med'cines cease;
Shall bless thy words, their wounded souls' relief;
The drops that sweeten their last dregs of life ;
Shall look to heav'n, and laugh at all beneath;
Own riches gather'd, trouble; fame a breath,
And life, an ill, whose only cure is death.

Thy even thoughts with so much plainness flow,
Their sense untutor'd infancy may know :
Yet to such height is all that plainness wrought,
Wit may admire, and letter'd pride be taught.
Easy in words thy style, in sense sublime

On its blest steps each age and sex may rise 'Tis like the ladder in the patriarch's dream,

;

« AnteriorContinuar »