The 1788 edition prints the poem with this title: "To the Memory of the brave, accomplished and patriotic Col. John Laurens, Who in the 27th year of his age, was killed in an engagement with a detachment of the British from Charleston, near the river Cambahee, in South Carolina, August 1782." The text follows the edition of 1809.
[298] In 1780 Laurens was sent by Congress on a mission to France for a loan and supplies, in which he was successful.
ON THE VICISSITUDES OF THINGS[299]
"The constant lapse of rolling years
Awakes our hopes, provokes our fears
Of something yet unknown;
We saw the last year pass away,
But who, that lives can safely say,
The next shall be his own?"
So hundreds talk—and thousands more
Descant their moral doctrines o'er;
And when the preaching's done,
Each goes his various, wonted way,
To labour some, and some to play—
So goes the folly on.
How swift the vagrant seasons fly;
They're hardly born before they die,
Yet in their wild career,
Like atoms round the rapid wheel,
We seem the same, though changing still,
Mere reptiles of a year.
Some haste to seek a wealthy bride,
Some, rhymes to make on one that died;
And millions curse the day,
When first in Hymen's silken bands
The parson joined mistaken hands,
And bade the bride obey.
While sad Amelia vents her sighs,
In epitaphs and elegies,
For her departed dear,
Who would suppose the muffled bell,
And mourning gowns, were meant to tell,
Her grief will last—a year?
In folly's path how many meet—
What hosts will live to lie and cheat—
How many empty pates
May, in this wise, eventful year,
In native dignity appear
To manage Rising States!