Oh! why should I think any harm could be there?
No cloud had come o’er me; all prospects were bright;
This vain course I pursued with exquisite delight;
I dreamed not that tears would these pleasures efface,
That sickness and death would come in for a place.
But my own dear loved father, in manhood and bloom,
Was called from life’s stage and consigned to the tomb;
How great such a change, and how solemn the day,
The same priest referred to was with us to pray.
Being then in youth’s bloom, in its glory and prime,