“I am truly sorry to find you complain of any decay, but I am sure if you have any it must he bodily, and has no other effect than that which both Mr. Waller[30] and yourself have so happily described as letting in light upon the soul. I never read anything in life that pleased me better than your meditations on Revelation x., and I hope I shall not only delight in reading the words, but lay the substance of it to my heart, to which end allow me to beg your prayers as an assistance. “My lord’s state of suffering—for he is again confined to his bed by the gout—gives me little opportunity and less inclination to lose much time in the gay amusements which are apt to divert other people from the thoughts of their dissolution; but I am not sure that a life of care and anxiety has not as bad an effect by fixing the mind too attentively on the present gloom, which obscures every cheerful ray which would otherwise enliven one’s spirits. I wish I had anything to send more worth your reading than the following verses, but I have so little leisure that I can scarce get time to write letters to the few friends I correspond with. These lines were written one morning in October as I was sitting in a bow-window in my chamber at St. Leonard’s Hill, which looks on a little grove in the garden, and beyond was an extensive view of the forest: How lately was yon russet grove The seat of harmony and love! How beauteous all the sylvan scene! The flowers how gay, the trees how green! But now it no such charms can boast, Its music gone, its verdure lost; The changing leaves fall fast away, And all its pride is in decay; Where blossoms deckt the pointed thorn Now hangs the wintry drop forlorn; No longer from the fragrant bush Odours exhale, nor roses blush. Along the late enamelled mead No golden cowslip lifts its head, Scarce can the grass its spires sustain, Chilled by the frost, or drenched with rain. Alas! just thus with life it fares. Our youth like smiling spring appears, Allied to joy, unbroke with cares; But swiftly fly those cheerful hours, Like falling leaves, or fading flowers; We quickly hasten to decline, And ev’ry sprightly joy resign: Then be our heart prepared to leave Those joys, nor at their absence grieve; Sublimer pleasures let us prove, And fix our thoughts on those above, By the bright eye of sacred truth Review the dangers of our youth, Think how by turns wild passions raged, By calm reflection now assuaged, And bless the gentle ev’ning hour, When reason best exerts its power, And drives those tyrants from our breast, Whose empire they too long possest: Devotion comes with grace divine, Around them heavenly glories shine, While ev’ry gloom their rays dispel, And banish the deceits of hell;