REFLECTIONS.
“Life glides away, Lorenzo! like a brook;
“For ever changing, unperceiv’d the change.
“In the same brook none ever bath’d him twice:
“To the same life none ever twice awoke.”
Young.
Step aside, vain mortal!—cast thine eyes on this emaciated figure, and then reflect on thy transitory life. Look yet closer—See! the smile is no longer seated here. In how short a time has this change happened! A few hours since and he sported in the sunshine of health: his gaiety was equal to thine. He had measured full twenty years; and many more appeared in readiness to swell the lump.
Dost thou shrink back?—Nay, start not! ’tis thine own picture thou art viewing!—Ere long and thou wilt be likened unto this odious mass. Perhaps thou mayest not again behold that bright luminary which constitutes the day.
Ah! ’twas but yesterday that this now inanimate substance was in the full exercise of every living faculty!—He had laid down a plan for future life, but lived not to put it in practice. While he was figuring to himself the many days of uninterrupted pleasure that seemed within his grasp, the dread summons arrived; and scarcely was the awful packet opened, before the victim was made sure.
L. B.
March 25, 1797.