Our infancy is consumed in eating and sleeping; in all which time, what differ we from beasts, but by a possibility of reason, and a necessity of sin !

O misery of mankind, in whom no sooner the image of God appeareth in the act of his reason, but the devil blurs it in the corruption of his will!

EPIG. 9.

To the decrepit man.

Thus was the seventh part of thy few days
Consum'd in grief, in food, in toyish plays:
Know'st thou what tears thine eyes imparted then?
Review thy loss, and weep them o'er again.

Јов

T

JOB XX. 11.

His bones are full of the sin of his youth.

1.

HE swift-wing'd post of Time hath now begun
His second stage;

The dawning of our age

Is lost and spent without a sun ; The light of reason did not yet appear Within th' horizon of this hemisphere.

2.

The infant will had yet no other guide
But twilight sense;

And what is gain'd from thence,
But doubtful steps that tread aside!
Reason now draws her curtains; her clos'd eyes
Begin to open, and she calls to rise.

3.

Youth's now disclosing buds peep out, and shew
Her April head;

And from her grass-green bed,

Her virgin primrose early blows;

Whilst waking Philomel prepares to sing
Her warbling sonnets to the wanton spring.

4.

His stage is pleasant, and the way seems short,
All strew'd with flow'rs;

The days appear but hours,

Being spent in time-beguiling sport.

Her griefs do neither press, nor doubts perplex;
Here's neither fear to curb, nor care to vex.

His

Now, Active, heedless, Volatile, and Gay,

Are Youth; the Offspring of the laughing May.

5.

His downy cheeks grow proud, and now disdains
The tutor's hand;

He glories to command

The proud-neck'd steed with prouder reins: The strong-breath'd horn must now salute his ear With the glad downfall of the falling deer.

6.

His quick-nos'd army, with their deep-mouth'd sounds,
Must now prepare

To chase the tim'rous hare,
About his yet unmortgag'd grounds;
The ill he hates, is counsel and delay;
And fears no mishief but a rainy day.

7.

The thought he takes, is how to take no thought
For bale* nor bliss ;

And late repentance is

The last dear pen'worth that he bought :
He is a dainty morning; and he may,
If lust o'ercast him not, be as fair a day.

8.

Proud blossom, use thy time: Time's headstrong horse Will post away.

Trust not the foll'wing day,

For ev'ry day brings forth a worse:

Take time at best: believe't, thy days will fall
From good to bad, from bad to worst of all.

*Bale; i. e. misery.

S. AM