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Even such is time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander'd all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days!
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!

Sir W. Raleigh

Fade, flowers! fade: nature will have it so;
'Tis what we must in our autumn do!
And as your leaves lie quiet on the ground,
The loss alone by those that lov'd them found,
So in the grave shall we as quiet lie,
Miss'd by some few that lov'd our company;
But some so like to thorns and nettles live,
That none for them can, when they perish, grieve.
Waller.

I envy not such graves as take up room,
Merely with jet and porphyry; since a tomb
Adds no desert; wisdom, thou thing divine,
Convert my humble soul into thy shrine;
And then this body, though it want a stone,
Shall dignify all places where 't is thrown.

F. Osborn.

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury! to vulgar minds unknown,
Along the walls where speaking marbles show
What worthies form the hallow'd mould below;
Proud names, who once the reins of empire held,
In arms who triumph'd, or in arts excell'd;
Chiefs, grac'd with scars, and prodigal of blood;
Stern patriots who for sacred freedom stood;
Just men, by whom impartial laws were given;
And saints who taught, and led the way to heaven.
Tickell on the Death of Addison.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy house-wife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Gray's Churchyard.

Here scatter'd oft, the loveliest of the year,
By hands unseen are showers of violets found.
The redbreast loves to build and warble here,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground
Gray's Churchyars.

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

Gray's Churchyard.
Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd,
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

Gray's Churchyard.

Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still, erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
deck'd,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd

muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply;

And many a holy text around she strews,
To teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

Gray's Churchyard.

The grave, dread thing! Men shiver when thou 'rt nam'd: nature appall'd

Shakes off her wonted firmness.

Blair's Grave.

When self-esteem, or others' adulation,
Would cunningly persuade us we are something
Above the common level of our kind;
The grave gainsays the smooth-complexion'd
flatt'ry,

And with blunt truth acquaints us what we are.
Blair's Grave.
Dull grave' fnou spoil'st the dance of youthful
blood,

Strik'st out the dimple from the cheek of mirth, Anu every smirking feature from the face; Branding our laughter with the name of madness. Where are the jesters now? the man of health

|Complexionally pleasant? where the droll,
Whose every look and gesture was a joke
To clapping theatres and shouting crowds,
And made e'en thick-lipp'd musing melancholy
To gather up her face into a smile
Before she was aware? ah! sullen now,
And dumb as the green turf that covers them.
Blair's Grave.

Here all the mighty troublers of the earth,
Who swam to sov'reign rule through seas of blood,
The oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying villains,
Who ravag'd kingdoms, and laid empires waste,
And in a cruel wantonness of power

Thinn'd states of half their people, and gave up
To want the rest; now, like a storm that 's spent,
Lie hush'd, and meanly sneak behind thy covert.
Vain thought! to hide them from the general scorn
That haunts and dogs them like an injur'd ghost
Implacable.

Blair's Grave. Proud royalty! how alter'd in thy looks! How blank thy features, and how wan thy hue! Blair's Grave

Here too the petty tyrant,
Whose scant domains geographer ne'er notic'd,
And, well for neighb'ring grounds, of arm as short,
Who fix'd his iron talons on the poor,

And grip'd them like some lordly beast of prey;
Deaf to the forceful cries of gnawing hunger,
And piteous plaintive voice of misery,
(As if a slave was not a shred of nature
Of the same common substance with his lord,)
Now tame and humble, like a child that's whipp'd,
Shakes hand with dust and calls the worm his
kinsman;

Nor pleads his rank and birthright. Under ground
Precedency's a jest; vassal and lord,
Grossly familiar, side by side consume.

Blair's Grave.
Where are the mighty thunderbolts of war?
The Roman Cæsars and the Grecian chiefs,
The boast of story? Where the hot-brain'd youth,
Who the tiara at his pleasure tore

From kings of all the then discover'd globe,
And cried, forsooth, because his arm was hamper'd,
And had not room enough to do its work?
Alas! how slim, dishonourably slim !
And cramm'd into a place we blush to name.
Blair's Grave.

Here the great masters of the healing art,
These mighty mock-defrauders of the tomb,
Spite of their juleps and catholicons,
Resign to fate! Proud Æsculapius' son,
Where are thy boasted implements of art,
And all thy well-cramm'd magazines of health?
Blair's Grave.

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