Here—for they could not help but die—
The daughters of the Rose-Bush lie:
Here rest, interred without a stone,
What dear Lucinda gave to none,—
What forward beau, or curious belle,
Could hardly touch, and rarely smell.
Dear Rose! of all the blooming kind
You had a happier place assigned,
And nearer grew to all that ’s fair,...
Death in this tomb his weary bones hath laid,
Sick of dominion o’er the human kind;
Behold what devastations he hath made,
Survey the millions by his arm confined.
“Six thousand years has sovereign sway been mine,
None but myself can real glory claim;
Great Regent of the world I reigned alone,
And princes trembled when my mandate came...
The handful here, that once was Mary’s earth,
Held, while it breathed, so beautiful a soul,
That, when she died, all recognized her birth,
And had their sorrow in serene control.
“Not here! not here!” to every mourner’s heart
The wintry wind seemed whispering round her bier;
And when the tomb-door opened, with a start
We heard...
What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones?
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
For...
Is there a whim-inspirèd fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate 1 to seek, owre proud to snool; 2
Let him draw near,
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.
Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowd among,
That weekly this area throng;
O,...
For the Tombstone Erected over the Marquis of Anglesea’s Leg, Lost at Waterloo
HERE rests, and let no saucy knave
Presume to sneer and laugh,
To learn that moldering in the grave
Is laid a British Calf.
For he who writes these lines is sure,
That those who read the whole
Will find such laugh was premature,
For here, too...
Another
I was buried near this Dike
That my Friends may weep as much as they like
A Bard's Epitaph
1786
Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.
Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who...
An Epitaph
Come knock your heads against this stone
For sorrow that poor John Thompsons gone
