This tribute flow’d, with hope that it might guard
The dust of him whose virtues call’d it forth;
But ’tis a little space of earth that man,
Stretch’d out in death, is doom’d to occupy;
Still smaller space doth modest custom yield,
On sculptured tomb or tablet, to the claims
Of the deceased, or rights of the bereft.
’Tis well; and tho’, the record overstepped
Those narrow bounds, yet on the printed page
Received, there may it stand, I trust, unblamed