The Legacy

When time’s vicissitudes are ended
Be this, be this my place of rest;
Here let my bones with earth be blended,
Till sounds the trumpet of the blest.
For here, in common home, are mingled
Their dust, whom fame or fortune singled;
And those whom fortune--fame pass’d by:
All mingled--and all mouldering;--folly
And wisdom--mirth and melancholy--
Slaves--tyrants--all mixt carelessly.

List! ’tis the voice of time--Creation’s
Unmeasured arch repeats the tone;
Look! even like shadows, mighty nations
Are born--flit by us--and are gone!
See! children of a common father,
See stranger-crowds, like vapors gather;
Sires--sons--descendants--come and go:
Sad history! Yet even there the spirit
Some joys may build--some hopes inherit,
And wisdom gather flowers from woe.

There, like a bee-swarm, round the token
Of unveil’d truth, shall sects appear,
And evil’s poisonous sting be broken
In the bright glance of virtue’s spear.
And none shall ask--What dormitory
Was this man’s doom--what robes of glory
Wore he--what garlands crown’d his brow--
Was pomp his slave?--Come, now discover
The heart, the soul--Delusion’s over--
What was his conduct?--Answer now!

Where stands yon hill-supported tower,
By Fili, shall I wake again,
Summon’d to meet Almighty Power
In judgment--like my fellow men.
I shall be there--and friends and brothers--
Sisters and children--fathers, mothers,--
With joy that never shall decay;
The soul, substantial blessings beaming,
(All here is shadowy and seeming)
Drinks bliss--no time can sweep away.

Friends, on my brow, that rests when weary,
Erect no proud and pompous pile:
Your monuments are vain and dreary,
Their splendour cannot deck the vile.
A green grave, by no glare attended,
With other dust and ashes blended,
O let my dust and ashes lie;
There, as I sleep, time, never sleeping,
Shall gather ages to his keeping,
For such is nature’s destiny.

My wife, my children shall inherit
All I possess’d--’twas mine--’tis theirs;
For death, that steals the living spirit,
Gives all earth’s fragments to its heirs.
Send round no circling-briefs of sorrow,
No garments of the raven borrow;
’Tis idle charge--’tis costly pride.
Be gay, through rain or frosty weather,
Nor gather idle priests together
To chaunt my humble grave beside.

Cry, orphans!--cry, ye poor!--imploring
The everlasting God, that He
May save me when I sink--adoring--
Amidst his boundless mercy-sea.
My blessing to my foes be given,
Their curses far from me be driven,
Nor break upon my hallow’d bliss;
God needs no studied words from mortals,
A sigh may enter Heaven’s wide portals--
He could not err--He taught us this.

No songs, no elegy--death hearkens
To music ne’er though sweet it be:
When o’er you night’s oblivion darkens,
Then let oblivion shadow me.
No verse will soften Hades’ sadness,
No verse can break on Eden’s gladness,
’Tis all parade, and shifting glare:--
A stream--where scatter’d trees are growing,
A secret tear--in silence flowing--
No monument as these so fair.

Such slumber here--their memory flashes
Across my thoughts.--Hail--Sister! hail--
I kiss thy sacred bed of ashes,
And soon shall share thy mournful tale.
Thou hast paid thy earthly debts--’tis ended--
Thy cradle and thy tomb are blended,
The circle of thy being run;
And now in peace thy history closes,
And thy still’d, crumbling frame reposes
Where life’s short, feverish play is done.

I live and toil--my thoughts still follow
The idle world:--my cares pursue
Dreams and delusions, baseless, hollow,
And vanities still false though new.
Then fly I earthly joys--I find them
Leave terror-working stings behind them:
‘Beware! beware!’ experience cries;
Yet ah! how faint the voice of duty,
One smile of yonder flattering beauty
Would make me waste even centuries.