EPITAPH ON MR W——,
A CELEBRATED MINERALOGIST.[4]
Stop, passenger! a wondrous tale to list—
Here lies a famous Mineralogist.
Famous indeed! such traces of his power,
He’s left from Penmaenbach to Penmaenmawr,
Such caves, and chasms, and fissures in the rocks,
His works resemble those of earthquake shocks;
And future ages very much may wonder
What mighty giant rent the hills asunder,
Or whether Lucifer himself had ne’er
Gone with his crew to play at foot-ball there.
His fossils, flints, and spars, of every hue,
With him, good reader, here lie buried too—
Sweet specimens! which, toiling to obtain,
He split huge cliffs, like so much wood, in twain.
We knew, so great the fuss he made about them,
Alive or dead, he ne’er would rest without them;
So, to secure soft slumber to his bones,
We paved his grave with all his favourite stones.
His much-loved hammer’s resting by his side;
Each hand contains a shell-fish petrified:
His mouth a piece of pudding-stone incloses,
And at his feet a lump of coal reposes:
Sure he was born beneath some lucky planet!—
His very coffin-plate is made of granite.
Weep not, good reader! he is truly blest
Amidst chalcedony and quartz to rest:
Weep not for him! but envied be his doom,
Whose tomb, though small, for all he loved had room:
And, O ye rocks!—schist, gneiss, whate’er ye be,
Ye varied strata!—names too hard for me—
Sing, “Oh, be joyful!” for your direst foe
By death’s fell hammer is at length laid low.
Ne’er on your spoils again shall W—— riot.
Clear up your cloudy brows, and rest in quiet—
He sleeps—no longer planning hostile actions,
As cold as any of his petrifactions;
Enshrined in specimens of every hue,
Too tranquil e’en to dream, ye rocks, of you.
[4] “Whilst on the subject of Conway, it may not be amiss to introduce two little pieces of a very different character from the foregoing, [Lines to Mr. Edward the Harper,] which were written at the same place, three or four years afterwards, and will serve as a proof of that versatility of talent before alluded to. As may easily be supposed, they were never intended for publication, but were merely a jeu d’esprit of the moment, in good-humoured raillery of the indefatigable zeal and perseverance of one of the party in his geological researches.”—Memoir, p. 20.