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EPITAPH UPON THE YEAR 1806.

HON. WILLIAM R. SPENCER.

DIS gone, with its thorns and its roses,
With the dust of dead ages to mix;

Time's charnel for ever encloses
The year Eighteen hundred and six!

Though many may question thy merit,
I duly thy dirge will perform,
Content, if thy heir but inherit

Thy portion of sunshine and storm!

My blame and my blessing thou sharest,
For black were thy moments in part,
But oh, thy fair days were the fairest

That ever have shone on my heart.

314

EPITAPH UPON THE YEAR 1806.

If thine was a gloom the completest
That death's darkest cypress could throw,
Thine, too, was a garland the sweetest
That life in full blossom could show !

One hand gave the balmy corrector
Of ills which the other had brewed ;
One draught of thy chalice of nectar
All taste of thy bitters subdued.

'Tis gone, with its thorns and its roses! With mine, tears more precious will mix,

To hallow this midnight which closes

The year Eighteen hundred and six.

WIFE, CHILDREN, AND FRIENDS.

HON. WILLIAM R. SPENCER.

HEN the black-lettered list to the gods was presented

(The list of what Fate for each mortal

intends),

At the long string of ills a kind goddess relented,

And slipt in three blessings-wife, children, and friends.

In vain surely Pluto maintained he was cheated,
For justice divine could not compass her ends;
The scheme of man's penance he swore was defeated,

For earth becomes heav'n with wife, children, and

friends.

316

WIFE, CHILDREN, AND FRIENDS.

If the stock of our bliss is in stranger hands vested,
The fund, ill-secured, oft in bankruptcy ends;
But the heart issues bills which are never protested
When drawn on the firm of Wife, Children, and
Friends.

Let the breath of renown ever freshen and cherish The laurel which o'er her dead favourite bends, O'er me wave the willow, and long may it flourish, Bedewed with the tears of wife, children, and friends.

Let us drink-for my song, growing graver and

graver,

To subjects too solemn insensibly tends;

Let us drink-pledge me high;-Love and Virtue

shall flavour

The glass which I fill to wife, children, and friends.

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