From Christ-Church graves, across the way, A dismal, horrid place is found, Where rushing winds exert their sway, And Greenland winter chills the ground:
No blossoms there are seen to bloom, No sun pervades the dreary gloom! The people of that gloomy place In penance for some ancient crime
Are held in a too narrow space, Like those beyond the bounds of time, Who darkened still, perceive no day, While seasons waste, and moons decay.
Cold as the shade that wraps them round, This icy region prompts our fear; And he who treads this frozen ground Shall curse the chance that brought him here —
The slippery mass predicts his fate, A broken arm, a wounded pate. When August sheds his sultry beam, May Celia never find this place,
Nor see, upon the clouded stream, The fading summer in her face; And may she ne'er discover there The grey that mingles with her hair.
The watchman sad, whose drowsy call Proclaims the hour forever fled, Avoids this path to Pluto's hall; For who would wish to wake the dead!—
Still let them sleep — it is no crime — They pay no tax to know the time. No coaches here, in glittering pride, Convey their freight to take the air,
No gods nor heroes here reside, Nor powdered beau, nor lady fair — All, all to warmer regions flee, And leave the glooms to Towne and me.
Soon to the gravedescends each honoured name That raised their country to this blazeof fame: Sages, that planned, and chiefs that led the way To Freedom's temple, all too soon decay,
Alike submit to one impartialdoom, Their glories closing in perpetual gloom, Like the palesplendours of the evening, fade, While night advances, to complete the shade.
REED,‘ tis for thee we shed the unpurchased tear, Bend o'er thy tomb, and plant our laurels there: Your acts, your life,the noblest pile transcend, And Virtue, patriot Virtue, mourns her friend,
Gone to those realms, where worth may claim regard, And gone where virtue meets her best reward. No single art engaged his vigorousmind, In every scene his active genius shined:
Nature in him, in honour to our age, At once composed the soldier and the sage — Firm to his purpose, vigilant, and bold, Detesting traitors, and despising gold,
He scorned all bribes from Britain's hostile throne For all his country's wrongs he heldhis own. REED, rest in peace: for time's impartial page Shall raise the blush onthis ungrateful age:
Long in these climes thy name shall flourish fair, The statesman's pattern, and the poet's care; Long in these climesthy memory shall remain, And still new tributes from new ages gain,
Fair to the eye that injured honour rise — Nor traitors triumph while the patriot dies.
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