Occasional verse, moral and sacred Published for the instruction and amusement of the Candidly Serious and Religious [by Edward Perronet] |
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AN EPITAPH,
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 | Occasional verse, moral and sacred |  |
211
AN EPITAPH,
On Mr. C. M. Who died in the Year 1762, aged 31 Years.
Hearken, ye young, ye hoary sires attend,Hear all who breathe the ashes of a friend:
To you they speak, on you benign they call,
Heirs of the tomb, and partners of the fall.
“Return,” they cry, “to earth return again,”
He bids who made, nor mocks the sons of men;
He bids, who form'd thy being at a word,
Creation's Fountain, and the creature's Lord!
For whom all nature and its sons were born,
From whom they issued, and to Him return:
For life or death, unending as unknown,
To that ascended, or to ruin gone.
Can you then hear, or can you thoughtless read,
This dread alarm, this summons from the dead?
Can you unmov'd the general sentence hear,
Nor sigh one wish, nor shed one genuine tear?
In vain, if so, would worlds entomb'd arise,
To rouze your fears, or point you to the skies.
| Occasional verse, moral and sacred | |