The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker/A Thought on Death

Alas! my thoughts, how faint they rise,
 * Their pinions clogg'd with dirt;

They cannot gain the distant skies,
 * But gravitate to earth.

No angel meets them on the way,
 * To guide them to new spheres;

And for to light them, not a ray
 * Of heavenly gace appears.

Return then to thy native ground,
 * And sink into the tombs;

There take a dismal journey round
 * The melancholy rooms:

There level'd equal king and swain,
 * The vicious and the just;

The turf ignoble limbs contain,
 * One rots beneath a bust.

What heaps of human bones appear
 * Pil'd up along the walls!

These are Death's trophies---furniture
 * Of his tremendous halls

The water oozing thro' the stones,
 * Still drops a mould'ring tear;

Rots the gilt coffin from the bones,
 * And lays the carcase bare.

This is Cleora---come, let's see
 * Once more the blooming fair;

Take off the lid---ah! 'tis not she,
 * A vile impostor there.

Is this the charmer poets sung,
 * And vainly deified,

The envy of the maiden throng?
 * (How humbling to our pride!)

Unhappy man, of transient breath,
 * Just born to view the day,

Drop in the grave---and after death
 * To filth and dust decay.

Methinks the vault, at ev'ry tread,
 * Sounds deeply in my ear,

'Thou too shalt join the silent dead,
 * 'Thy final scene is here.'

Thy final scene! no, I retract,
 * Not till the clarion's sound

Demands the sleeping pris'ners back
 * From the refunding ground:

Not till that audit shall I hear
 * Th' immutable decree,

Decide the solemn question, where
 * I pass eternity.

Death is the conqueror of clay,
 * And can but clay detain;

The soul, superior, springs away,
 * And scorns his servile chain.

The just arise, and shrink no more
 * At graves, and shrouds, and worms,

Conscious they shall (when time is o'er)
 * Inhabit angel forms.