Classic Poem

Welcome, ah! welcome, life's last friend, decay!
Faint on, tir'd soul and lapse, unmourn'd , away;
Now, I look back, asham'd, at hope's false blaze,
That shone, delightful, on my happier days;
In their true colours, now, too late, I see,
What youth, and pride, and mirth, and praise, must be!
Bring, then, great curer , death, thy dark relief,
And save me, from vain sense of hopeless grief.
Shut me for ever from the suffering scene,
And leave long voids for silent rest between.
Thy hand can snatch me from a weeping son ,
Heir to my woes , and born to be undone!
Place me, where I, no more, his wrongs shall hear,
Nor his told sorrows reach my shelter'd ear.

Thus while I mourn'd , retir'd, from hated light ,
Sleep came, and hid affliction , in the night ;
The night , instructive to my bold complaint ,
In a long dream , did that sad march re-paint,
That pomp of tears , which did, for S HEFFIELD , flow,
Who, lately, blacken'd half our streets, with woe .
There , cry'd a pointing seraph , look! compare!
And blush, forgetful, of your light despair!
What has THIS mother lost, as far distrest ,
Beyond her sex , as, late, beyond 'em, blest!
Son of her soul! her child , by mind, and birth,
Bright , by her fires, and guardian of her worth;
Promise of virtues, to the rising age!
Yet, ah! how blasted is the lov'd presage!
Think of HER loss, her weight of woe bemoan,
And, humbly conscious, sigh not, for your own.