O 'scap'd from life! O safe on that calm shore Where sin, and pain, and passion are no more! What never wealth could buy, nor pow'r decree, Regard and Pity wait sincere on thee:
Lo! soft Remembrance drops a pious tear, And holy Friendship stands a mourner here.
IN THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL.
TAKE, holy Earth! all that my soul holds dear: Take that best gift which Heav'n so lately gave: To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care Her faded form: she bow'd to taste the wave, And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine: Ev'n from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.
Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free;
As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, ("Twas ev'n to thee) yet the dread path once trod, Heav'n lifts its everlasting portals high,
And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.' Mason.
EPITAPH ON MISS DRUMMOND,
IN THE CHURCH OF BRODSWORTH, YORKSHIRE. HERE sleeps what once was beauty, once was grace; Grace, that with tenderness and sense combin'd To form that harmony of soul and face,
Where beauty shines the mirror of the mind. Such was the maid, that in the morn of youth, In virgin innocence, in nature's pride,
Bless'd with each art that owes its charm to truth, Sunk in her father's fond embrace, and died.
He weeps: Oh venerate the holy tear;
Faith lends her aid to ease affliction's load; The parent mourns his child upon her bier, The Christian yields an angel to his God.
INSCRIPTION FOR THE TOMB OF MR. HAMILTON.
PAUSE here, and think: a monitory rhyme Demands one moment of thy fleeting time. Consult life's silent clock, thy bounding vein; Seems it to say-Health here has long to reign?' Hast thou the vigour of thy youth? an eye That beams delight? a heart untaught to sigh? Yet fear. Youth, ofttimes healthful and at ease, Anticipates a day it never sees;
And many a tomb, like Hamilton's, aloud Exclaims, Prepare thee for an early shroud.'
STANZAS SUBJOINED TO A YEARLY BILL OF
COMPOSED FOR A PARISH CLERK.
WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run The Nen's barge-laden wave,
All these, life's rambling journey done, Have found their home, the grave.
Was man (frail always) made more frail Than in foregoing years?
Did famine or did plague prevail, That so much death appears ?
No; these were vig'rous as their sires, Nor plague nor famine came: This annual tribute Death requires, And never waves his claim.
Like crowded forest-trees we stand, And some are mark'd to fall; The axe will smite at God's command, And soon shall smite us all.
Green as the bay-tree, ever green, With its new foliage on,
The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen, I pass'd-and they were gone.
Read, ye that run, the awful truth,
With which I charge my page; A worm is in the bud of youth, And at the root of age.
No present health can health ensure
For yet an hour to come;
No medicine, though it oft can cure, Can always baulk the tomb.
And O! that, humble as my lot, And scorn'd as is my strain,
These truths, though known, too much forgot, I may not teach in vain.
So prays our clerk with all his heart,
And ere he quits the pen,
Begs you for once to take his part, And answer all-Amen!
ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.
COULD I, from Heav'n inspir'd, as sure presage To whom the rising year shall prove his last, As I can number in my punctual page, And item down the victims of the past;
How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet On which the press might stamp him next to die; And, reading here his sentence, how replete With anxious meaning, heav'nward turn his eye!
Time then would seem more precious than the joys In which he sports away the treasure now; And pray'r more seasonable than the noise Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow.
Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore, Forc'd to a pause, would feel it good to think, Told that his setting sun must rise no more.
Ah, self-deceiv'd! Could I prophetic say Who next is fated, and who next to fall, The rest might then seem privileg'd to play; But, naming none, the voice now speaks to ALL.
Observe the dappled foresters, how light They bound and airy o'er the sunny glade- One falls-the rest, wide-scatter'd with affright, Vanish at once into the darkest shade.
Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn'd, Still need repeated warnings, and at last, A thousand awful admonitions scorn'd, Die self-accus'd of life run all to waste?
Sad waste! for which no after thrift atones. The grave admits no cure for guilt or sin; Dew-drops may deck the turf, that hides the bones, But tears of godly grief ne'er flow within.
Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught Of all these sepulchres, instructors true,
That soon or late, death also is your lot, And the next op'ning grave may yawn for you.
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