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Lettered on facing page: "14 | As on a rock of adamant we build | Our mountain hopes; spin our eternal schemes, | As we the fatal sisters would outspin, | And, big with life's futurities, expire. | Not even PHILANDER had bespoke his shroud, | Nor had he cause; a warning was denied: | How many fall as sudden--not as safe! | As sudden, though for years admonish'd home. | Of human ills the last extreme beware, | Beware, LORENZO! a slow-sudden death: | How dreadful that deliberate surprise! | Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to defer; | Next day the fatal precedent will plead; | Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life: | Procrastination is the thief of time; | Year after year it steals, till all are fled; | And to the mercies of a moment leaves | The vast concerns of an eternal scene: | If not so frequent, would not this be strange? | That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still. | Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears | The palm, 'That all men are about to live'-- | For ever on the brink of being born. | All pay themselves the compliment to think | They one day shall not drivel; and their pride | On this reversion takes up ready praise, | At least their own, their future selves applauds: | How excellent that life they ne'er will lead! | Time lodged in their own hands is folly's vails; | That lodged in fate's, to wisdom they consign;"