Thou hearest every prayer offered to thee believingly with a penitent and sincere heart. For thou in withholding grantest, healest in inflicting the wound, yea, turnest all to good for as many as truly seek thee through Christ the Mediator! Thy will be done! But if it be according to thy wise and righteous ordinances, O shield me this night from the assaults of disease, grant me refreshment of sleep, unvexed by evil and distempered dreams; and if the purpose and aspiration of my heart be upright before thee who alone knowest the heart of man, O, in thy mercy, vouchsafe me yet in this my decay of life, an interval of ease and strength, if so,—thy grace disposing and assisting—I may make compensation to thy church for the unused talents thou hast entrusted to me, for the neglected opportunities which thy loving-kindness had provided. O let me be found a labourer in thy vineyard, though of the late hour, when the Lord and Heir of the vintage, Christ Jesus calleth for his servant.—Lit. Rem.
S. T. C."
Mr. Coleridge wrote, in his life-time, his own epitaph, as follows:—
"Stop, Christian passer-by: stop, child of God,
And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seemed he—
O, lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C.
That he who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death;
Mercy for praise-to be forgiven for fame
He asked, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same."
A handsome tablet, erected in Highgate New Church, to his memory, bears the following inscription:—
"Sacred to the Memory of
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE,
Poet, Philosopher, Theologian.
This truly great and good man resided for
The last nineteen years of his life,
In this Hamlet.
He quitted 'the body of his death,'
July 25th, 1834,
In the sixty-second year of his age.
Of his profound learning and discursive genius,
His literary works are an imperishable record.
To his private worth,
His social and Christian virtues,
JAMES AND ANN GILLMAN,
The friends with whom he resided
During the above period, dedicate this tablet.
Under the pressure of a long
And most painful disease,
His disposition was unalterably sweet and angelic.
He was an ever-enduring, ever-loving friend,
The gentlest and kindest teacher,
The most engaging home-companion.