 | Miscellanies in Prose and Verse |  |
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On the Recovery of the Right Honourable Lord Viscount MOLESWORTH, from his Illness, in the Year 1755.
Welcome once more to chearful light, to life,To health, to virtue, and to virtue's friends,
O MOLESWORTH! best belov'd; the winged seraph
Destin'd to waft thee through th' etherial space;
Above the distant sun's diminish'd orb,
And starry climax of aspiring worlds;
Where time and nature from the soul recede,
And all the wide, extended, vast, creation,
In one contracted viewless point is lost:
The heav'nly minister, by prayer depriv'd,
Joyless return'd, without his charge on high,
Where kindred saints, and bright seraphic friends,
Associates of thy youthful, glorious war,
On Hockstet's and Malplaquet's sanguin'd plains,
Expecting thy triumphant coming, stood:
There Churchill's, and thy godlike father's shade,
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The meed of learning, and of matchless war,
(With philosophic palms, the growth of heav'n)
Waited thy presence on the blessful shore;
On thy accomplish'd brow to bind the rich,
United, and immortal wreath, thy due,
Whom both Minerva's and the Graces crown.
With patience then endure this mortal state,
For mankind's good; a little longer hold
This tenement of clay; from endless joys,
A few short years refrain; nor pine the loss,
For, O! eternity has endless date.
Thy lease from nature is not yet expir'd,
And heav'n, at virtue's ardent pray'r, renews it.
Thou worthy, noble, much-belov'd, thou just,
Thou blameless man, O welcome back to life,
To social sweets sincere, parental joys,
Connubial love, domestic happiness,
The public wish, and friendship's sacred joys.
| Miscellanies in Prose and Verse | |