THROUGH thickest glooms look back, immortal <br /> shade, <br />On that confusion which thy death has made: <br />Or from Olympus' height look down, and see <br />A Town involv'd in grief bereft of thee. <br />Thy Lucy sees thee mingle with the dead, <br />And rends the graceful tresses from her head, <br />Wild in her woe, with grief unknown opprest <br />Sigh follows sigh deep heaving from her breast. <br /> Too quickly fled, ah! whither art thou gone? <br />Ah! lost for ever to thy wife and son! <br />The hapless child, thine only hope and heir, <br />Clings round his mother's neck, and weeps his sorrows <br /> there. <br />The loss of thee on Tyler's soul returns, <br />And Boston for her dear physician mourns. <br /> When sickness call'd for Marshall's healing hand, <br />With what compassion did his soul expand? <br />In him we found the father and the friend: <br />In life how lov'd! how honour'd in his end! <br /> And must not then our AEsculapius stay <br />To bring his ling'ring infant into day? <br />The babe unborn in the dark womb is tost, <br />And seems in anguish for its father lost. <br /> Gone is Apollo from his house of earth, <br />But leaves the sweet memorials of his worth: <br />The common parent, whom we all deplore, <br />From yonder world unseen must come no more, <br />Yet 'midst our woes immortal hopes attend <br />The spouse, the sire, the universal friend.<br /><br />Phillis Wheatley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-death-of-dr-samuel-marshall/
