Verses on the Door of a Temple

Lost in the vale of years I mourn,
Those days that never must return,
May ye whose early lives were spent,
In pleasures, ne’er those days repent,
For me, alas, the world I shun,
And hide me from the mid-day sun.
Yet here, beneath this lovely roof,
I see, I hear, the keen reproof
That life mispent is but a blot,
How vain our joys, how soon forgot.

Oct. 13th 1806