A PARTICULAR FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR'S.
As those we love decay, we die in part,
String after string is sever'd from the heart;
Till loosen'd life, at last, but breathing clay,
Without one pang is glad to fall away.
Unhappy he, who latest feels the blow,
Whose eyes have wept o'er every friend laid low,
Dragg'd lingering on from partial death to death,
Till, dying, all he can resign is breath.
TELL me, thou soul of her I love,
Ah! tell me, whither art thou fled? To what delightful world above, Appointed for the happy dead?
Or dost thou, free, at pleasure, roam, And sometimes share thy lover's woe; Where, void of thee, his cheerless home alas! no comfort know?
Oh! if thou hover'st round my walk,
While, under ev'ry well-known tree,
I to thy fancy'd shadow talk,
And every tear is full of thee;
Should then the weary eye of grief,
Beside some sympathetic stream,
In slumber find a short relief,
Oh visit thou my soothing dream!
HERE, STANLEY! rest, escap'd this mortal strife,
Above the joys, beyond the woes of life.
Fierce pangs no more thy lively beauties stain,
And sternly try thee with a year of pain:
No more sweet patience, feigning oft relief,
Lights thy sick eye, to cheat a parent's grief:
With tender art, to save her anxious groan,
No more thy bosom presses down its own:
Now well-earn'd peace is thine, and bliss sincere:
Ours be the lenient, not unpleasing tear!
O born to bloom, then sink beneath the storm;
To show us Virtue in her fairest form;
To show us artless Reason's moral reign,
What boastful Science arrogates in vain;
Th' obedient passions knowing each their part;
Calm light the head, and harmony the heart!
Yes, we must follow soon, will glad obey,
When a few suns have roll'd their cares away,
Tired with vain life, will close the willing eye:
'Tis the great birth-right of mankind to die.
Blest be the bark, that wafts us to the shore,
Where death-divided friends shall part no more!
To join thee there, here with thy dust repose,
Is all the hope thy hapless mother knows.
RECTOR OF STRADDISHALL IN SUFFOLK.
THUS safely low, my friend, thou canʼst not fall:
Here reigns a deep tranquillity o'er all;
No noise, no care, no vanity, no strife;
Men, woods, and fields, all breathe untroubled life.
Then keep each passion down, however dear;
Trust me, the tender are the most severe.
Guard, while 'tis thine, thy philosophic ease,
And ask no joy but that of virtuous peace;
That bids defiance to the storms of fate:
High bliss is only for a higher state.
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