Ah, silly fly! will you advance?
I see you in the sunbeam dance:
Attracted by the silken glance
In that dread loom;
Or blindly led, by fatal chance,
To meet your doom.
Ah! think not, ’tis the velvet flue
Of hare, or rabbit, tempts your view;
Or silken threads of dazzling hue,
To ease your wing,
The foaming savage, couched for you,
Is on the spring.
Entangled! freed!—and yet again
You touch! ’tis o’er—that plaintive strain,
That mournful buzz, that struggle vain,
Proclaim your doom:
Up to the murderous den you’re ta’en,
Your bloody tomb!
So thoughtless youths will trifling play
With dangers on their giddy way,
Or madly err in open day
Through passions fell,
And fall, though warned oft, a prey
To death and hell!
But hark! the fluttering leafy trees
Proclaim the gently swelling breeze,
Whilst through my window, by degrees,
Its breathings play:
The spider’s web, all tattered flees,
Like thought, away.
Thus worldlings lean on broken props,
And idly weave their cobweb-hopes,
And hang o’er hell by spider’s ropes,
Whilst sins enthral;
Affliction blows—their joy elopes—
And down they fall! [{235}]
EPISTLE TO A YOUNG CLERGYMAN.
“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”—2 Timothy ii. 15.
My youthful brother, oft I long
To write to you in prose or song;
With no pretence to judgment strong,
But warm affection—
May truest friendship rivet long
Our close connection!