Perhaps in this hard-beaten spot is laid
Some head once vers’d in the mechanic powers,
Hands that the bat at cricket oft have sway’d,
Or won the cup for gooseberries and flowers.
Slow through the streets on tottering footsteps borne,
Muttering his humble ditties he would rove,
Singing “Goose Fair,” [311] or “Tread Mill” where forlorn
Consign’d by Lincoln ’squires trod David Love.
One week I miss’d him from the market-place,
Along the streets where he was wont to be;
Strange voices came, but his I could not trace,
Before the ’Change, nor by Sheep-lane was he.
And now with honour due, in sad array
Slow through the church-yard paths we’ve seen him borne;
Approach and hear (if thou wilt hear) the lay
In which the bard’s departed worth we mourn.
Epitaph.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A minstrel old in Nottingham well known,
In Caledonia was his humble birth,
But England makes his aged bones her own.
Long were his verses, and his life was long,
Wide, as a recompense, his fame was spread;
He sold for halfpence (all he had) a song,
He earn’d by them (’twas all he wish’d) his bread.
No farther I his merits can disclose,
His widow dwells where David late abode;
Go, buy his life, wrote by himself, which shows
His service to his country, and his God.
G.
Nottingham,
June 14, 1827.