BEHOLD the sod where the tir’d pilgrim rests,
Death, sole proprietor, his sceptre rears,
And reigns triumphant o’er the conquer’d dust.
Silent and still the mould’ring ruins lie,
The young, the old, the simple, and the wise,
Sunk to one common level, meet at last.
Life is compos’d of inequalities,
Diversified with mountain, hill and dale,
In endless variation;some are plac’d
In the low walks of povertysome tread
The midway path, and some aspiring gain
The gilded heights where proud ambition dwells;
But in the vale of death distinction ends.
His is the region where with equal sway,
The beggar and the king lie down at last.
His atmosphere is silencewhere he treads,
Eternal stillness follows, that no power,
Less than omnipotent, shall ever break.
Here is the volume of instruction spread,
Each rising hillock tells an awful truth,
A truth unwelcome to the busy mind,
Intent on things below;a truth severe
To those who grasp the glittering icicles
Which decorate the opening morn of life,
And think them solid treasures;truth severe
And sad to some and hard to be believ’d;
But which a few short years, now on the wing,
Shall realize to all.This is the spot
For contemplation.Death unfolds his page,
And while his spoils are scatter’d at our feet,
We rise beyond his empire and himself;
Rise far above the vapours that obscure
The noblest objects of our anxious search,
And from that pure celestial eminence,
When contemplation leads the heav’ntaught mind,
We view the glories of immortal life,
Purchas’d for those who seek with earnest zeal,
To find the way, since “those who seek shall find.”
This is the glorious promise left for man;
It stands recorded in the sacred page,
From him whose words are everlasting truth.
Death has no influence beyond the grave
This is the utmost limit of his power,
His magazine where all his spoils are laid.
He only seizes on the grosser part,
While the pure spirit, from its bondage freed,
Ranges the vast ethereal vault of heav’n,
And joins its kindred spirit in the skies.
Such is our high immortal destiny
Such the great end which heav’n designs for man.
Death is our truest friendhe bends his bow
Only to strip us of encumb’ring clay.
Death is our great reward.The sceptic dreads
His near approach, and cloaths his giant form
With tenfold horrors; while the Christian hears
His coming footsteps with a tranquil smile.
Eternal mercy robb’d him of his sting,
And reconciles us to our adverse foe
Where virtue reignshenceforth we welcome death,
Who leads us joyful to a land of peace,
And smiling sets the captive spirit free.
Here lie the great, the rich, the vain, the proud,
Mould’ring in all the pomp of vanity,
Whose glitt’ring trophies wave o’er half the world,
And ever varying in their form and hue,
Are fix’d at last upon the sculptur’d tomb.
The letter’d stone the grand distinction marks,
To tell the pensive stranger, as he treads
These solitary confines of the dead,
What glorious spoils the shades below have won:
Yet soon unheeded will the record stand,
If in the memory of those we leave,
Affection has not rais’d her monument.
Affection gives to death a double sting,
To wound the bosom of surviving friends.
The living feel his arrowswhile the dead,
O’er whom we pour the unavailing tear,
Enjoy a liberty before unknown,
The full perfection of eternal life.
(Elizabeth Bath)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, Life Poems, World Poems, Mind Poems, Death & Dying Poems, War & Peace Poems, Youth Poems, Friendship Poems, Christianity Poems, Kings & Queens Poems, Smiling PoemsBased on Keywords: sceptic, purchas, sculptur, cloaths, variation, diversified, proprietor, reconciles, inequalities