Extempore Exclamation on the Prospect of Winter

Oh! may our follies, like the falling trees, Be stript of ev'ry leaf by autumn's wind; May ev'ry branch of vice embrace the breeze, And nothing leave but virtue's fruit behind. Then when old age, life's winter, shall appear, In conscious hope, all future ills we'll brave, With fortitude our dissolution bear, And sink, forgotten, in the silent grave.

THE man within the golden mean, Who can his boldest wish contain, Securely views the ruin'd cell, Where sordid want and sorrow dwell, And in himself, serenely great, Declines an envied room of state.