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Lettered inside image: "15 | The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone: | 'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool; | And scarce in human wisdom to do more: | All promise is poor dilatory man, | And that through every stage: when young, indeed, | In full content we sometimes nobly rest, | Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish, | As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise: | At thirty man suspects himself a fool; | Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; | At fifty chides his infamous delay, | Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; | In all the magnamimity of thought | Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same. | And why? because he thinks himself immortal: | All men think all men mortal, but themselves; | Themselves; - when some alarming shock of fate | Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread; | But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, | Soon close; where pass'd the shaft no trace is found. | As from the wing no scar the sky retains; | The parted wave no furrow from the keel; | So dies in human hearts the thought of death: | Even with the tender tear which nature sheds | O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. | Can I forget PHILANDER? that were strange: | O my full heart! - but should I give it vent, | *The longest night though longer far, would fail, | And the lark listen to my midnight song."; lower left: "inv & sc. WB | Pubd. June 27. 1796, by R.Edwards, No.142, New Bond Street."