Compel the lungs to stay the fleeting breath?
Can fun’ral vollies wake the slumb’ring dust,
Or gleaming gorget ward the dart of death?
Perhaps on tatter’d pillow now is laid,
Some head by nature fashion’d for command,
Whose solid sense in council might have sway’d,
And led to victory a num’rous band.
But science from their mind, with piercing rays,
The fogs of ignorance did ne’er dispel,
Mechanic toil consum’d their youthful days,