Thoughts on Passing through a Church-Yard

I've pac'd the sacred yard, oh death! thy sting, / Expunge from earth the beggar and the king; / A marble monument, a stone foretell, / The characters below, here acted well: / Each grave a warning give, and yet we see, / Few strive to gain a bless'd eternity: / Kindred and neighbours with departing sigh, / Cry, write o'er me, 'remember all must die! ' / Can we these warnings with indifferance view, / And still a life of guilt and sin pursue.

So frail our natures that at times we pray, / At church at morn, yet sin the after day; / Much shall we tremble, when the trumpets sound, / To call us to our God with Angels round.

There shall we tottering hear the just decree, / Of him alone, who can all spirits free: / How oft we find when sickness brings distress, / We wish our sufferings and our crimes were less; / It is our crimes that most our anguish brings, / And paint grim death, with all his bitter stings, / Then erring man if happiness you crave, / Repent and sin no more this side the grave.