Poems and Plays by Mr. Jerningham. In Four Volumes ... The Ninth Edition |
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 | Poems and Plays |  |
31
EPITAPHS.
ON Miss JERNINGHAM.
January 1773.
Ah, venerate this hallow'd ground,And mark the infant-virtues round!
See Innocence, celestial fair,
With Childhood, Heav'n's peculiar care:
See Beauty opening into bloom,
Bending o'er this youthful tomb:
Behold Affection that endears,
And Wit beyond an infant's years,
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Still, still refusing to complain)
By Sorrow led, a choral band,
Fix'd on this sacred spot they stand!
And as they view this marble stone,
Their little Mistress they bemoan.
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ON JAMES ROBSON,
WHO DIED IN THE TWENTIETH YEAR OF HIS AGE, BY A FALL FROM HIS HORSE.
To mark the hapless Youth's disastrous doom,The sorrow-wedded Father rears the tomb,
On which a Mother wishes to express
The mingled pride that swells with her distress:
For he was all Affection could desire,
All Duty ask'd, all Friendship could require:
Simplicity was his, with strength of mind,
With ev'ry milder influence combin'd;
While Virtue, ardent to complete the whole,
Diffus'd her magic colour o'er the soul!
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ON Miss HAMILTON.
Endow'd with all that Fortune could bestow;With brilliancy of wit, and beauty's glow,
Francisca, rising to her fifteenth year,
Stood mid the virgin train without a peer:
Her conscious bosom throbb'd to virtue warm,
While diffidence still heighten'd ev'ry charm:
But Heav'n's decree forbad this Beauty's Queen
To act her part thro' beauty's short-liv'd scene:
A gradual illness on her figure prey'd,
And slowly, slowly sunk the fading Maid:
Torn from each wish to which her youth aspir'd,
Unfearing—uncomplaining—she expir'd:
Thus some faint lily to its mother-ground
In silence falls—while spring is blooming round.
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LINES ON THE MONUMENT OF Sir JOHN ELLIOT, M. D.
Thus when the poison'd shafts of Death are sped,The plant of Gilead bends her mournful head:
The holy balm that sooth'd another's pain
O'er her own wound distils its charms in vain.
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[They whom in life the bond of Friendship bound]
[_]
THE FOLLOWING LINES, DESIGNED FOR A MONUMENT OF TWO FRIENDS, Were written by the Gentleman who erected the Monument, and were translated at his request.
Here in dread union press the funeral ground.
| Poems and Plays | |