The English Dance of Death from the designs of Thomas Rowlandson, with metrical illustrations, by the author of "Doctor Syntax" [i.e. William Combe] |
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 | The English Dance of Death |  |
For laurell'd Heroes and the brave,
Glory oft digs a distant grave,
Deep in the blood-besprinkled plain,
Cover'd with thousands of the slain,
Whose ghastly, mangled forms invite
The Vulture to delay his flight.
—The scepter'd Monarch yields his crown
In state, upon a bed of down;
While Poverty doth oft withdraw
From life, upon a bed of straw.
Some die with hemp around their gullets,
And some from balls—and some from bullets:
But 'twas the fate of poor Jack Marrow,
To breathe his last on a Wheel-barrow.
Glory oft digs a distant grave,
Deep in the blood-besprinkled plain,
Cover'd with thousands of the slain,
Whose ghastly, mangled forms invite
The Vulture to delay his flight.
—The scepter'd Monarch yields his crown
In state, upon a bed of down;
While Poverty doth oft withdraw
From life, upon a bed of straw.
Some die with hemp around their gullets,
And some from balls—and some from bullets:
But 'twas the fate of poor Jack Marrow,
To breathe his last on a Wheel-barrow.
| The English Dance of Death | |