Classic Poem

REFLECTING ON HIS GRACE .

Such were the stern reproofs, illustrious shade!
That once to thee a warning voice conveyed;
Thus he, whose eloquence enchants the world,
Against thy head his powerful thunders hurled;
Thus thy bright path the modern Tully crossed,
The sorrowing parent in the statesman lost;
Thus he, whose praise thou hadst been proud to share,
To stop thy progress bade his lightnings glare.
But, had not death those lips in silence closed
Which still by turns each varying passion roused,....
Had that afflicted genius lived to see.
The increasing merit that distinguished thee,
And then beheld thee from the world removed,
When most deserving, and when most beloved,....
He would, forgetting all his anger past,
O'er thy fair fame his sheltering wings have cast;
Thy " few and idle years" no longer scorned,
But as a public loss thy death bemourned,....
Nor thee " a poor rich man" have dared to deem,
But owned him truly rich whom all esteem,....
No longer thought " derivative thy worth,"
But owned thy virtues nobler than thy birth;....
And, while too well he felt the parent's woe,
When doomed a darling offspring to forgo,
Fated to follow to the silent grave
The child whose opening virtues transport gave,
He, as he sorrowed for thy early doom,
And saw in fancy thy untimely tomb,
Would, urged by mournful envy, thus have cried....
" Blest were his parents!.... they before him died!"