While thirteen moons saw smoothly run <br />The Nen's barge-laden wave, <br />All these, life's rambling journey done, <br />Have found their home, the grave. <br /> <br />Was man (frail always) made more frail <br />Than in foregoing years? <br />Did famine or did plague prevail, <br />That so much death appears? <br /> <br />No; these were vigorous as their sires, <br />Nor plague nor famine came; <br />This annual tribute Death requires, <br />And never waives his claim. <br /> <br />Like crowded forest-trees we stand, <br />And some are marked to fall; <br />The axe will smite at God's command, <br />And soon shall smite us all. <br /> <br />Green as the bay tree, ever green, <br />WIth its new foliage on, <br />The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen, <br />I passed, -- and they were gone. <br /> <br />Read, ye that run, the awful truth <br />With which I charge my page! <br />A worm is in the bud of youth, <br />And at the root of age. <br /> <br />No present health can health insure <br />For yet an hour to come; <br />No meicine, though it oft can cure <br />Can always balk the tomb. <br /> <br />And oh! that humble as my lot, <br />And scorned as is my strain, <br />These truths, though known, too much forgot, <br />I may not teach in vain. <br /> <br />So prays your Clerk with all his heart, <br />And, ere he quits the pen, <br />Begs you for once to take his part, <br />And answer all -- Amen!<br /><br />William Cowper<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/stanzas-subjoined-to-the-yearly-bill-of-mortality-of-the-parish-of-all-saints-northampton-anno-domini-1787/
