In smoke and ale roll’d their dull lives away;
True as the college clock’s unvarying hand,
Each morrow was the echo of to-day.
“Thus, free from cares, and children, noise and wife,
Pass’d his smooth moments; till, by Fate’s command,
A lethargy assail’d his harmless life,
And check’d his course, and shook his loitering sand.
“Where Merton’s towers in Gothic grandeur rise,
And shed around each soph a deeper gloom,
Beneath the centre aisle interr’d he lies,