 | Poems by Hartley Coleridge |  |
61
ON A YOUNG MAN DYING ON THE EVE OF MARRIAGE.
With contrite tears, and agony of Prayer,
God we besought, thy virtuous youth to spare,
And thought, Oh! be the human thought forgiven,
Thou wert too good to die, too young for heaven—
Yet sure the prayers of love had not been vain,
If death to thee were not exceeding gain.
I know not who first used this expression, nor at what time it entered into my mind. It occurs where one should hardly expect to find it—in Darwin's Botanic Garden; but I had never read the “Botanic Garden” at the time that I wrote this epitaph. Doubtless I have read the phrase elsewhere. It could not be of Darwin's invention.
God we besought, thy virtuous youth to spare,
And thought, Oh! be the human thought forgiven,
Thou wert too good to die, too young for heaven—
Yet sure the prayers of love had not been vain,
If death to thee were not exceeding gain.
Tho' for ourselves, and not for thee we mourn,
The weakness of our hearts thou wilt not scorn;
And if thy Saviour's, and thy Father's will,
Such angel love permit, wilt love us still,
For Death, which every tie of earth unbinds,
Can ne'er dissolve the “marriage of pure minds.”
The weakness of our hearts thou wilt not scorn;
And if thy Saviour's, and thy Father's will,
Such angel love permit, wilt love us still,
For Death, which every tie of earth unbinds,
Can ne'er dissolve the “marriage of pure minds.”
| Poems by Hartley Coleridge | |