The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842) - Gredos ...

The Salamanca Corpus: The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842)
And children, too, the slow procession join,
And his fond friends indulge the trickling tear
O’er his last honours at the awful shrine.
Perhaps some orphan here might see inurn’d
The only guardian of her orphan years;
And, on the precipice of errors turn’d,
Become reclaim’d by sweet repentant tears.
The lover, too, might strain an eager look,
Once more attempting to survey the fair
Who, for his sake, her early friends forsook,
With him her days of joy or grief to share.
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What beauty or what charms adorn’d the frame
Of this cold image, now to earth consign’d;
Or what just praise the heart’s high worth might claim,
The time-worn letters now no more remind.
Then what is honour?—what is wealth or fame?
Since the possessor waits the common doom!
As much rever d we find the peasant’s name
As the rich lord’s, when in the levelling tomb.
To both alike this tribute we may send,
The heart-swollen sigh, or the lamenting tear;
And without difference o’er their ashes bend,
For all distinctions find a level here.
For nought avails the marble o’er each head,
Nor all the art which sculpture can bestow,
To save the memory of the honour’d dead,
Or strike the living with their wonted awe.
Then come, ye vain, whom Fortune deigns to bless,
This scene at once shall all her frauds expose;
And ye who Beauty’s loveliest charms possess
From this may find a moral in the rose.
For soon infirmity shall fix her seat,
And dissolution lastly close the scene;
No more shall youth your jocund acts repeat,
Or age relate what graver years have been.
Yet think not death awaits the course of years,
He comes whilst youth her shield of health supports;
In every place the potent king appears,