To virtue’s noblest exercises train,
And for a brighter world the soul to plume.
But ah! full fast our sickly comforts fade,
The brightest prospects bloom but to decay:
Too soon for us heaven bade disease invade,
And call’d to its bless’d scenes thy soul away.
No more we hear thy voice, with comfort fraught,
Nor in thy harmless wit soft pleasure find:
Mule is that tongue, the noblest truths that taught,
And cold the breast that warm’d for human kind.