O Life! how pleasant is thy morning,

Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning!

Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning,

We frisk away,

Like schoolboys at th' expected warning,

To joy and play.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Epistle to James Smith.

Teach him how to live,

And, oh still harder lesson! how to die.

Beilby Porteus (1731-1808): Death. Line 316.

Misses! the tale that I relate

This lesson seems to carry,—

Choose not alone a proper mate,

But proper time to marry.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Pairing Time Anticipated.

Here the heart

May give a useful lesson to the head,

And Learning wiser grow without his books.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 85.