ASPIRATION
OVER THE TOMB OF AN AMIABLE FRIEND.
If honour, prudence, piety combin’d,
A noble nature, and an humble mind,
Esteem’d whilst living, claim, while dead, a tear,
The Muse is justified who pays it here.
For, O, if all which virtue ever gave
Could save her vot’ries from th’ insatiate grave,
Whom here I mourn had now in this sad hour
Been an existent instance of her pow’r.
Existent instance!—mount above the pole
Dull Muse, and trace the disembodied soul,
Who, haply now, exulting in its doom,
Views, with a smile, the disappointed tomb.
What tho’ its tent, beneath a fateful sky
Prone in the dust, by death subverted, lie,
Itself, escap’d above the stormy bow,
Securely views the ruin spread below.
So when an earthquake shakes this trembling ball,
And the high rocks in pond’rous thunders fall,
Tho’ not her nest the devastations spare
The Eagle still exults sublime in air!
NEW-YORK: Printed by THOMAS BURLING, Jun. No. 115, Cherry-street—where Subscriptions for this Magazine (at 6s. per quarter) will be gratefully received—And at No. 33, Oliver-Street.