Classic Poem

How oft, alas! life calls us to complain,
That all it gives, is giv'n but to decay!
How oft we're forc'd to mark in mournful strain,
Love, friendship, snatch'd, untimely snatch'd away.

A mother's loss requir'd my infant tear,
Ere yet how much in her I lost I knew,
The next was shed on early friendship's bier;
And now, my Anna, to thy grave is due.

Thy form so graceful, and thy beauteous face,
Of pow'r to gain the heart, and charm the eye,
Despoil'd of all their beauty, all their grace,
A senseless clod amidst the valley ly.

Ah! what avails thee, then, that once so fair,
Since all thy bloom is now for ever fled?
Can beauty bid the hand of fate to spare,
Or is it honour'd 'mong the silent dead?

All earthly goods to death resign their pow'r:
How vain the brightest charms that beauty gave!
Nor can they comfort life's departing hour,
Nor reach beyond the mansions of the grave.

Thro' life's dark maze how chearless we would stray,
Whose varied paths but lead us to the tomb,
Did not religion with its friendly ray
Enlarge our prospects, and dispel the gloom.

It tells, That pilgrims in this drear abode,
Far from our nature's bliss we're forc'd to roam,
And death is only the appointed road,
Again to lead us to our native home.

Let but a few short fleeting years be past,
When all the good, who liv'd on earth before,
Shall to each other be restor'd at last,
Again united, nor divided more.

When shall the happy period e'er arrive,
When I my mother, lov'd unseen, shall see.
And of the many friends, endear'd alive,
And dead, lamented, chiefly, Anna, thee?