STANZAS
To the Memory of a Young Gentleman who died abroad.
The mournful occasion of the following Stanzas which happened soon after the preceding piece was composed, shews the uncertainty of human hope, and the impotency of all human wishes; but it becomes his creatures to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, without repining at his dispensations, who doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men, but for wise and gracious purposes, and what we know not now we shall know hereafter—
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
Cowper.
There is a bed beyond the main,
Where sleeps a generous youth in peace,
Far distant from his kindreds’ ken,
The lonely place.
He left his home at honour’s call,
And hurried on to win her bays;
But death commissioned, mark’d his fall,
Ere half his days.
At least sound health, and manhood’s bloom,
Intrepid mind and spirits bright,
Him promised many days to come,
To our dim sight.
But in this transitory state,
Man’s highest hopes, below the skies,
Must all end thus, or soon or late,
In “here he lies.”
Where did his friends their leader leave?
What kindly turf doth him embrace?
Where orange branches mingling wave
Above the place.
To screen from Afric’s burning beams,
The shrubs and verdure newly sprung,
Where desert flowers like beauteous gems,
Will blossom long.
The monumental honours paid
By friendship to his lov’d remains,
By sons of Briton will be read,
In mournful strains.
For there, by friendly Negroes led,
Enquiring travellers will be shewn
The stranger white man’s letter’d bed,
From land unknown.
’Twill warn the youth, whoe’er he be,
Who haply there may venturous roam,
That hopeful, healthful, gay as he,
Soon found a tomb.
There rest his bones, yet feeling here,
Will view the spot in fancy’s dream,
And hold his memory truly dear,
And love his name.
Parental tenderness will feel,
In melting woe, a kind relief,
And time will ease though never heal
The wound of grief.
Let sisterly affection flow,
It calms the heart, and ’tis a debt
Which to a brother’s love they owe,
And to his fate.
O’erpowering painful stretch of mind,
Fatigue and fever, all did meet,
And death made cold a heart, as kind
As ever beat.
But sweetness mixes with the cup;
Who knows but Heaven has call’d him home
From draining many a bitter drop
Of ills to come.
Now anxious fears are at an end,
And hope’s delightful visions lost
All buried in a foreign land,
Sad Afric’s coast.
Like time its comforts fleeting prove,
Life’s joys are here but shadowy bliss,
Found real in the world above,
But not in this.