| |
| O DEATH! thou victor of the human frame! | |
| The soul’s poor fabric trembles at thy name! | |
| How long shall man be urged to dread thy sway, | |
| For those whom thou untimely tak’st away? | |
| Life’s blooming spring just opens to our eyes, | 5 |
| And strikes the senses with a sweet surprise, | |
| When thy fierce arm uplifts the fatal blow | |
| That hurls us breathless to the earth below. | |
| |
| Sudden, as darts the lightning through the sky, | |
| Around the globe thy various weapons fly. | 10 |
| Here war’s red engines heap the field with slain, | |
| And pallid sickness there extends thy reign; | |
| Here the soft virgin weeps her lover dead, | |
| There maiden beauty sinks the graceful head; | |
| Here infants grieve their parents are no more, | 15 |
| There reverend sires their children’s deaths deplore; | |
| Here the sad friend—O! save the sacred name, | |
| Yields half his soul to thy relentless claim; | |
| O pardon, pardon the descending tear! | |
| Friendship commands, and not the muses, here. | 20 |
| O say, thou much loved, dear departed shade, | |
| To what celestial region hast thou stray’d? | |
| Where is that vein of thought, that noble fire, | |
| Which fed thy soul, and bade the world admire? | |
| That manly strife with fortune to be just, | 25 |
| That love of praise? an honorable thirst! | |
| The soul, alas! has fled to endless day, | |
| And left its house a mouldering mass of clay. | |
| |
| There, where no fears invade, nor ills molest, | |
| Thy soul shall dwell immortal with the blest; | 30 |
| In that bright realm, where dearest friends no more | |
| Shall from each other’s throbbing breasts be tore, | |
| Where all those glorious spirits sit enshrined, | |
| The just, the good, the virtuous of mankind. | |
| There shall fair angels in a radiant ring, | 35 |
| And the great Son of heaven’s eternal King, | |
| Proclaim thee welcome to the blissful skies, | |
| And wipe the tears for ever from thine eyes. | |
| |
| How did we hope—alas! the hope how vain! | |
| To hear thy future more enripen’d strain; | 40 |
| When fancy’s fire with judgment had combined | |
| To guide each effort of the enraptured mind. | |
| Yet are those youthful glowing lays of thine | |
| The emanations of a soul divine; | |
| Who heard thee sing, but felt sweet music’s dart | 45 |
| In thrilling transports pierce his captive heart? | |
| Whether soft melting airs attuned thy song, | |
| Or pleased to pour the thundering verse along, | |
| Still nobly great, true offspring of the Nine, | |
| Alas! how blasted in thy glorious prime! | 50 |
| So when first ope the eyelids of the morn, | |
| A radiant purple does the heavens adorn, | |
| Fresh smiling glory streaks the skies around, | |
| And gaily silvers each enamel’d mound, | |
| Till some black storm o’erclouds the ether fair, | 55 |
| And all its beauties vanish into air. | |
| |
| Stranger, whoe’er thou art, by fortune’s hand | |
| Toss’d on the baleful Carolinian strand, | |
| Oh! if thou seest perchance the poet’s grave, | |
| The sacred spot with tears of sorrow lave; | 60 |
| Oh! shade it, shade it with ne’er fading bays. | |
| Hallow’d ’s the place where gentle Godfrey lays. | |
| (So may no sudden dart from death’s dread bow, | |
| Far from the friends thou lov’st, e’er lay thee low,) | |
| There may the weeping morn its tribute bring, | 65 |
| And angels shield it with their golden wing, | |
| Till the last trump shall burst the womb of night, | |
| And the purged atoms to their soul unite! | |
| |
