Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball, 35 Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall; On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates; There passengers shall stand, and pointing say, (While the long funerals blacken all the way) 40 Lo! these were they, whose souls the Furies steeled, And curst with hearts unknowing how to yield. Thus unlamented pass the proud away, The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! So perish all, whose breast ne’er learned to glow 45 For others’ good, or melt at others’ woe. What can atone (O ever injured shade!) Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid? No friend’s complaint, no kind domestic tear, Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier: 50 By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned, By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourned! What though no friends in sable weeds appear; 55 Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year, And bear about the mockery of woe To midnight dances, and the public show? What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace, Nor polished marble emulate thy face? 60 What though no sacred earth allow thee room, Nor hallowed dirge be muttered o’er thy tomb? Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast: There shall the Morn her earliest tears bestow, 65 There the first roses of the year shall blow; While angels with their silver wings o’ershade The ground now sacred by thy relics made. So, peaceful rests, without a stone, a name, What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame. 70 How loved, how honoured once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot; A heap of dust alone remains of thee; ’Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be! Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung, 75 Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. Even he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays; Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part, And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart, 80 Life’s idle business at one gasp be o’er, The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more! _Alexander Pope._ CLXIV _ON THE DEATH OF MR. ROBERT LEVET_, A PRACTISER IN PHYSIC. Condemned to Hope’s delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blasts, or slow decline, Our social comforts drop away.