The Virginia Gazette

While Beauty and Pleasure are now in their Prime,
And Folly and Fashion expect our whole Time,
Ah! let not those Phantoms our Wishes engage,
Let us live so in Youth that we blush not in Age.
Though the Vain and the Gay may attend us a While,
Yet let not their Flattery our Prudence beguile;
Let us covet those Charms that will never decay,
Nor listen to all that Deceivers can say:
"How the Tints of the Rose, and the Jasmine's Perfume,
The Eglantine's Fragrance, the Lilac's gay Bloom,
Though fair, and though fragrant, unheeded may lie,
For that neither is sweet where Florella is by."
I sigh not for Beauty, nor languish for Wealth,
But grant me, kind Providence, Virtue and Health;
Then richer than Kings, and as happy as they,
My Days shall pass sweetly and Swiftly away.
When Age shall steal on me, and Youth is no more,
And the Moralist, Time, shakes his Glass at my Door;
What Charm in lost Beauty or Wealth shall I find?
My Treasure, my Wealth, is a sweet Peace of Mind.
That Peace I'll preserve, then, as free as 'twas given,
And taste in my
Bosom an Earnest of Heaven;
For Virtue and Wisdom can warm the cold Scene,
And Sixty may flourish as gay as Sixteen.
And when long I the Burthen of Life shall have borne,
And Death, with his Sickle, shall cut the ripe Corn,
Resign'd to my Fate, without Murmur or Sigh,
I'll bless the kind Summons, and lie down and die.