While lisping children, touched with infant fear,
With wonder gaze, and drop th’ unconscious tear;
Oh! then this moral bid their souls retain,
All thoughts of happiness on earth are vain!”
The last faint accents trembled on his tongue,
That now inactive to the palate clung;
His bosom heaves a mortal groan—he dies!
And shades eternal sink upon his eyes.
As thus defaced in death Palemon lay,
Arion gazed upon the lifeless clay;