My Midnight Meditation

Ill busi'd man! why should'st thou take such care

To lengthen out thy life's short calendar?

When ev'ry spectacle thou lookst upon

Presents and acts thy execution.

Each drooping season and each flower doth cry,

"Fool! as I fade and wither, thou must die.

"The beating of thy pulse (when thou art well)

Is just the tolling of thy Passing Bell:

Night is thy Hearse, whose sable Canopy

Covers alike deceased day and thee.

And all those weeping dews which nightly fall,

Are but the tears shed for thy funeral."