"And blest are they who sleep; and we that know, While in a spot like this we breathe and walk, That all beneath us by the wings are covered Of motherly humanity, outspread 925 And gathering all within their tender shade, Though loth and slow to come! A battle-field, In stillness left when slaughter is no more, With this compared, makes[502] a strange spectacle! A dismal prospect yields the wild shore strewn 930 With wrecks, and trod by feet of young and old Wandering about in miserable search Of friends or kindred,[503] whom the angry sea Restores not to their prayer! Ah! who would think That all the scattered subjects which compose 935 Earth's melancholy vision through the space Of all her climes--these wretched, these depraved, To virtue lost, insensible of peace, From the delights of charity cut off, To pity dead, the oppressor and the opprest; 940 Tyrants who utter the destroying word, And slaves who will consent to be destroyed-- Were of one species with the sheltered few, Who, with a dutiful and tender hand, Lodged, in a dear appropriated spot,[504] 945 This file of infants; some that never breathed The vital air; others, which, though allowed[505] That privilege, did yet expire too soon, Or with too brief a warning, to admit Administration of the holy rite 950 That lovingly consigns the babe to the arms Of Jesus, and his everlasting care. These that in trembling hope are laid apart; And the besprinkled nursling, unrequired Till he begins to smile upon the breast 955 That feeds him; and the tottering little-one Taken from air and sunshine when the rose Of infancy first blooms upon his cheek; The thinking, thoughtless, school-boy; the bold youth Of soul impetuous, and the bashful maid 960 Smitten while all the promises of life Are opening round her; those of middle age, Cast down while confident in strength they stand, Like pillars fixed more firmly, as might seem, And more secure, by very weight of all 965 That, for support, rests on them; the decayed And burthensome; and lastly, that poor few Whose light of reason is with age extinct; The hopeful and the hopeless, first and last, The earliest summoned and the longest spared-- 970 Are here deposited, with tribute paid Various, but unto each some tribute paid;[506] As if, amid these peaceful hills and groves, Society were touched with kind concern, And gentle 'Nature grieved, that one should die;'[GX] Or, if the change demanded no regret, 976 Observed the liberating stroke--and blessed.