TO Mrs. MARGARET DU BOIS: ON The DEATH OF Her late vertuous Father, JOHN NICOLL, M.D

While you, DU BOIS, command the tears to flow, And every bosom beats with silent woe; An infant Muse awakes her dying fire, And in a FUNERAL-SONG resumes the lyre. Permit me then in pensive strains to mourn, Join in thy grief, and echo groan to groan, And drop a tear on NICOLL'S sacred urn: In mingled torrents let our grief flow down; I weep the Friend, while you the Parent moan.

FORGIVE, immortal Shade! if aught can rise Warbled from dust to the superior skies, A feeble mortal, who wou'd fain rehearse Thy deathless vertues in unfading verse.

OH! speak, DU BOIS, (those joyless glooms dispel) You, whom he lov'd, his vertues best can tell; Say when, for oft in converse you were join'd, What were the dictates of his holy mind? What heavenly sounds flow'd from his breast refin'd? Oft' have I seen thee, when he spoke, rejoice To hear the accents of a Father's voice; To hear him soar above this dull abode, And talk of Heaven, of Vertue, of his GOD: What sacred flames his glowing breast inspir'd, When from the world in silence he retir'd! But now no more his raptur'd bosom glows; No more the Church his heavenly transport knows; Death, the grim TYRANT of the human-race, Breathless enfolds him in her cold embrace.

LAMENT, ye PIOUS! ye religious PEW! Whose boundless thoughts celestial joys pursue; For, lo! the man for piety rever'd, Who scarcely but thro' human frailty err'd; Tho' grave religion shone around his head, Promiscuous lies among the vulgar dead! While others mourn, lament ye numerous POOR! Who never unreliev'd forsook his door: His alms descended like the flowing light, And Poverty look'd chearful in his sight.

STRANGER to civil and religious strife, He pass'd the stages of a peaceful life: In youth he flourish'd o'er the youthful throng; Thro' temperance severe his age was strong; No slow diseases wore his frame away; He fled at once, — impatient of delay. So some tall OAK, the monarch of the woods, Exalts his tow'ring summit to the clouds; The spreading boughs extended o'er the plain, From heat defend, and shelter from the rain; Till by some furious storm's destructive rage, He falls, — the honour of a lengthen'd age.

A MAN so excellent who but must grieve To lose; yet Heaven rejoices to receive: There he is gone sublimest joys to prove In the gay bow'rs that crown the seats above; Loud songs among the blissful choir to raise, And spend a glad eternity in praise. To distant shores his ever-living name Shall fly unsullied on the wings of fame.

CEASE then, DU BOIS, thy tears, — no more complain, Nor weep an Angel, whom you lov'd a Man: In youth immortal, see thy FATHER drest! In robes celestial, see him stand confest! All pain forever banish'd from his breast; Among the SONS OF LIGHT, his glad compeers, He sees unnumber'd worlds, and treads the spheres.

WHEN nature into ruin shall be hurl'd, And the last trump surprize th' astonish'd world; When clad in glory, GOD's eternal SON Shall sit majestic on a radiant throne; GOD-LIKE, thy NICOLL'S sacred dust shall rise, And his embodied spirit mount th' imperial skies.

BUT can his lov'd Idea from thee go, Long as the vital streams of nature flow? Tho' friendship cease, and love no more inspire The breasts of lovers with a glowing fire; Yet THINE shall sacred last, THINE undecay'd, Burn on thro' death, and animate thy Shade.