Alas, regardless of their doom,

The little victims play!

No fenfe have they of ills to come,

Nor care beyond to-day;

Yet fee how all around 'em wait

The Minifters of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train !

Ah fhew them where in ambush stand

To feize their prey the murth'rous band!
Ah, tell them, they are men!

Thefe fhall the fury Paffions tear,
The vultures of the mind,

Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that fculks behind ;

Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,

That

That inly gnaws the fecret heart,

And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-vifag'd comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this fhall tempt to rife,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a Sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The ftings of Falfhood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow;

And keen Remorfe with blood defil'd,`

And moody Madness * laughing wild

Amid fevereft woe.

Lo,

Madness laughing in his ireful mood.,
Dryden's Fable of Palamon and Arcite.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath

A grily troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their Queen:

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring finew ftrains,

Those in the deeper vitals rage:

Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,

That numbs the foul with icy hand,
And flow-confuming Age.

To each his fuff'rings: all are men,

Condemn'd alike to groan,

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate?

Since forrow never comes too late,

And happiness too fwiftly flies.

Thought would destroy their paradise,

No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wife.

LONG

A

LONG STORY.

C