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POEMS

ON

SEVERAL OCCASIONS.

VERSES

OCCASIONED BY THE

DEATH of Mr. AIK MAN,

A PARTICULAR FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR'S.

A

S those we love decay, we die in part,

String after string is fever'd from the heart;

Till loofen'd life, at laft, but breathing clay,
Without one pang is glad to fall away.
Unhappy he, who latest feels the blow,

Whose eyes have wept o'er every friend laid low,
Dragg'd lingering on from partial death to death,
Till, dying, all he can refign is breath.

O D E.

I.

TELL me, thou foul of her I love,

Ah! tell me, whither art thou fled;

To what delightful world above,
Appointed for the happy dead?

II.

Or doft thou, free, at pleasure, roam,
And fometimes fhare thy lover's woe;
Where, void of thee, his chearless home
Can now, alas! no comfort know?

III.

Oh! if thou hover'ft round my walk,
While, under ev'ry well-known tree,
I to thy fancy'd fhadow talk, å or
And every tear is full of thee;

IV. 1

Should then the weary eye of grief,
Befide fome fympathetic stream,

In flumber find a fhort relief,

Oh vifit thou my foothing dream!

EPITAPH

HE

ON

MISS STANLEY.

ERE, STANLEY, reft, efcap'd this mortal strife,
Above the joys, beyond the woes of life.
Fierce pangs no more thy lively beauties stain,
And fternly try thee with a year of pain:
No more fweet patience, feigning oft relief,
Lights thy fick eye, to cheat a parent's grief:
With tender art, to fave her anxious groan,
No more thy bofom presses down its own:
Now well-earn'd peace is thine, and blifs fincere:
Ours be the lenient, not unpleafing tear!

O born to bloom, then fink beneath the storm;
To fhow us Virtue in her fairest form;
To fhow us artless Reason's moral reign,
What boastful Science arrogates in vain;
Th' obedient paffions knowing each their part;
Calm light the head, and harmony the heart!

Yes, we must follow foon, will glad obey,
When a few funs have roll'd their cares away,
Tir'd with vain life, will close the willing eye:
'Tis the great birth-right of mankind to die.
Bleft be the bark! that wafts us to the fhore,
Where death-divided friends fhall part no more:
To join thee there, here with thy duft repofe,
Is all the hope thy hapless mother knows.

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