Epitaph for the Rev. Dr. Buckland

Mourn, Ammonites, mourn o'er his funeral urn Whose neck ye must grace no more; Gneiss, Granite, and Slate! he settled your date, And his ye must now deplore.

Weep, Caverns, weep! with infiltering drip, Your recesses he'll cease to explore; For mineral veins and organic remains No Stratum again will he bore.

Oh! his Wit shone like Crystal! his knowledge profound From Gravel to Granite descended; No Trap could deceive him, no Slip could confound, Nor specimen true or pretended. He knew the birth-rock of each pebble so round And how far its tour had extended.

His eloquence roll'd like the Deluge retiring Which Mastodon carcases floated; To a subject obscure he gave charms so inspiring Young and Old on Geology doated. He stood forth like an Outlier; his hearers admiring In pencil each anecdote noted.

Where shall we our great Professor inter, That in peace may rest his bones? If we hew him a rocky sepulchre He'll rise and break the stones, And examine each Stratum that lies around, For he's quite in his element under ground.

If with Mattock and Spade his body we lay In the common alluvial soil, He'll start up and snatch those tools away Of his own Geological toil. In a Stratum so young the Professor disdains That embedded should be his Organic Remains.

Then exposd to the drip of some case-hard'ning spring, His carcase let Stalactite cover, And to Oxford the petrified sage let us bring, When he is incrusted all over; There 'mid Mammoths and Crocodiles, high on a Shelf, Let him stand as a Monument raised to himself.