Lines on a Friend Who Died of a Frenzy Fever Induced by Calumnious Reports

1. 1Edmund! thy grave with aching eye I scan,
2. 2And inly groan for Heaven's poor outcast--Man!
3. 3'Tis tempest all or gloom: in early youth
4. 4If gifted with th' Ithuriel lance of Truth
5. 5We force to start amid her feign'd caress
6. 6Vice, siren-hag! in native ugliness;
7. 7A Brother's fate will haply rouse the tear,
8. 8And on we go in heaviness and fear!
9. 9But if our fond hearts call to Pleasure's bower
10. 10Some pigmy Folly in a careless hour,
11. 11The faithless guest shall stamp the enchanted ground,
12. 12And mingled forms of Misery rise around:
13. 13Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast,
14. 14That courts the future woe to hide the past;
15. 15Remorse, the poison'd arrow in his side,
16. 16And loud lewd Mirth, to Anguish close allied:
17. 17Till Frenzy, fierce-eyed child of moping Pain,
18. 18Darts her hot lightning-flash athwart the brain.

1. 19Rest, injur'd shade! Shall Slander squatting near
2. 20Spit her cold venom in a dead man's ear?
3. 21'Twas thine to feel the sympathetic glow
4. 22In Merit's joy, and Poverty's meek woe;
5. 23Thine all, that cheer the moment as it flies,
6. 24The zoneless Cares, and smiling Courtesies.
7. 25Nurs'd in thy heart the firmer Virtues grew,
8. 26And in thy heart they wither'd! Such chill dew
9. 27Wan Indolence on each young blossom shed;
10. 28And Vanity her filmy net-work spread,
11. 29With eye that roll'd around in asking gaze,
12. 30And tongue that traffick'd in the trade of praise.
13. 31Thy follies such! the hard world mark'd them well!
14. 32Were they more wise, the Proud who never fell?
15. 33Rest, injur'd shade! the poor man's grateful prayer
16. 34On heaven-ward wing thy wounded soul shall bear.

1. 35As oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass,
2. 36And sit me down upon its recent grass,
3. 37With introverted eye I contemplate
4. 38Similitude of soul, perhaps of--Fate!
5. 39To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assign'd
6. 40Energic Reason and a shaping mind,
7. 41The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part,
8. 42And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart--
9. 43Sloth-jaundic'd all! and from my graspless hand
10. 44Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand.
11. 45I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows,
12. 46A dreamy pang in Morning's feverous doze.

1. 47Is this piled earth our Being's passless mound?
2. 48Tell me, cold grave! is Death with poppies crown'd?
3. 49Tired Sentinel! mid fitful starts I nod,
4. 50And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod!