 | Poems by Matthew Stevenson |  |
Upon a Gentleman drown'd, and lost in the River Wharfe in Yorkshire.
It signifies just nothing, when Heaven calls,Let Worms, or Fishes, be our Cannibals.
My fancy yet, the nobler Fish prefers
Before the Worms, those crawling Sepulchers.
Nor care I much, since something must confound me,
A Feaver burn me, or a Dropsie drown me?
Flesh has its Period, and that stop being come,
What could he wish, but such a Crystal Tomb?
Whence he, in time may mount up to the Sun,
In some translucid Exhalation.
Whilst such, as in their Chambers make their ends,
Bugbears become, and scare-Crows to their Friends.
But he that liv'd, and I hope dy'd in Christ,
Could not be so much drown'd, as re-baptiz'd.
So Gods Elect (pardon our gloss upon't)
Had no less than an Ocean for their Font.
112
Crost but this Jordan into Canaan.
That more than milky Paradice? They must swim
Oceans of Tears that mean to follow him.
Cease then vain search, and let those bones alone,
That rest with Moses in a Tomb unknown.
For know he had spite of his fatal fall,
Floated e're this, but that he had no gall:
Whom silent deeps conceal, least he once found,
Should in our Tears a second time be drown'd.
| Poems by Matthew Stevenson | |