Why cheerfully sing when there are no flowers,
Or sun in the valley to shine?
’Tis proof that thy prospects are brighter than ours,
Thy heart more contented than mine!
PETCH’S ELEGY!
How short, how frail is our abode on earth!
But yesterday it seems since we sprang forth:
Life doth no sooner sparkle in our eye,
Than we are subject to decline and die!
A brother Mason now a victim lies
To Death, whose icy hand hath closed his eyes!
He sleeps, forgetful of his toil and care;
In prime of life, no more his voice we hear.
No more the chisel moves within his hands,
The sounding axe no more his skill demands:
But silence reigns,—his spirit’s gone to rest,
His ransom’d soul is number’d with the blest!
His sins and follies here he did bemoan,
A heavy burden, grievous to be borne;
When lo, the Lord, a week before he died,
Dispers’d the gloom, and all his wants supplied
In the Redeemer’s blood he did believe,
And God his pardoning love to him did give:
Such depth of mercy fill’d us with surprise,
And tears of gratitude flow’d from our eyes!
He boldly triumph’d in God’s pardoning grace,
With love and patience beaming in his face;
Till fainting in the icy arms of death,
He praised his God with his departing breath
How oft have we in health, and free from pain,
Joyful to labour, cross’d the dewy plain,
Before the morning stars had disappear’d,
Or early harmony the woodlands cheer’d!