Stranger! behold, interr'd together, <br />The souls of learning and of leather. <br />Poor Joe is gone, but left his all: <br />You'll find his relics in a stall. <br />His works were neat, and often found <br />Well stitch'd, and with morocco bound. <br />Tread lightly -- where the bard is laid <br />He cannot mend the shoe he made; <br />Yet is he happy in his hole, <br />With verse immortal as his sole. <br />But still to business he held fast, <br />And stuck to Phobus to the last. <br />Then who shall say so good a fellow <br />Was only 'leather and prunella?' <br />For character - he did not lack it <br />And if he did, 'twere shame to 'Black it. <br />Malta, May 16, 1811.<br /><br />George Gordon Byron<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/epitaph-for-joseph-blackett-late-poet-and-shoemaker/
