trump alone shall wake that slumber deep.
Take up those flowers that fell
From the dead hand, and sigh a long farewell!
Your spirits rest in bliss!
Yet ere with parting prayers we say,
Farewell for ever to the insensate clay,
Poor maid, those pale lips we will kiss!
Ah! 'tis cold marble! Artist, who hast wrought
This work of nature, feeling, and of thought;
Thine, Chantrey, be the fame
That joins to immortality thy name.
For these sweet children that so sculptured rest--
A sister's head upon a sister's breast--
Age after age shall pass away,
Nor shall their beauty fade, their forms decay.
For here is no corruption; the cold worm
Can never prey upon that beauteous form:
This smile of death that fades not, shall engage
The deep affections of each distant age!
Mothers, till ruin the round world hath rent,
Shall gaze with tears upon the monument!
And fathers sigh, with half-suspended breath:
How sweetly sleep the innocent in death!
_July 2, 1826._
* * * * *
ON MISS FITZGERALD AND LORD KERRY PLANTING TWO CEDARS IN THE CHURCHYARD
OF BREMHILL.
Yes, Pamela, this infant tree
Planted in sacred earth by thee,
Shall strike its root, and pleasant grow
Whilst I am mouldering dust below.
This churchyard turf shall still be green,
When other pastors here are seen,
Who, gazing on that dial gray,
Shall mourn, like me, life's passing ray.
What says its monitory shade?
Thyself so blooming, now shalt fade;
And even that fair and lightsome boy,
Elastic as the step of joy,
The future lord of yon domain,
And all this wide extended plain,
Shall yield to creeping time, when they
Who loved him shall have passed away.
Yet, planted by his youthful hand,
The fellow-cedar still shall stand,
And when it spreads its boughs around,
Shading the consecrated ground,
He may behold its shade, and say
(Himself then haply growing gray),
Yes, I remember, aged tree,
When I was young who planted thee!
But long may time, blithe maiden, spare
Thy beaming eyes and crisped hair,
Thy unaffected converse kind,
Thy gentle and ingenuous mind.
For him when I in dust repose,
May virtue guide him as he grows;
And may he, when no longer young,
Resemble those from whom he sprung!
Then let these trees extend their shade,
Or live or die, or bl
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