An Epistle in Verse, occasioned by the death of James Boswell, Esquire of Auchinleck -- Addressed to the Rev. Dr. T. D. By the Rev. Samuel Martin |
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 | An Epistle in Verse, occasioned by the death of James Boswell, Esquire |  |
Can thought be far from man? can grief and pain,
And death, and desolation, plead in vain?
Mortality on every hand appears:
The orphan's wailings, and the widow's tears;
By sea and land, the havock of the storms,
And War's and Earthquake's more terrific forms;
The craving church-yard, Time's destroying sway,
Exertion's waste, Sloth's torpor and decay;
Calamity, diseases, crimes, unite,
To turn the soul from dissolute delight,
To check the power of sense, and to restore
Faith's all-composing, all-reviving power.
Can mortal man forget that he must die,
And but prepare for immortality?
And death, and desolation, plead in vain?
Mortality on every hand appears:
The orphan's wailings, and the widow's tears;
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And War's and Earthquake's more terrific forms;
The craving church-yard, Time's destroying sway,
Exertion's waste, Sloth's torpor and decay;
Calamity, diseases, crimes, unite,
To turn the soul from dissolute delight,
To check the power of sense, and to restore
Faith's all-composing, all-reviving power.
Can mortal man forget that he must die,
And but prepare for immortality?
| An Epistle in Verse, occasioned by the death of James Boswell, Esquire | |