AN ELEGY. <br />Addressed to a Lady, who was affected at seeing the <br />Funeral of a nameless Pauper, buried at the ex- <br />pense of the Parish, in the Church-Yard at Bright- <br />helmstone, in November 1792. <br />SWELLS then thy feeling heart, and streams thine eye <br />O'er the deserted being, poor and old, <br />Whom cold, reluctant, parish charity <br />Consigns to mingle with his kindred mould? <br />Mourn'st thou, that here the time-worn sufferer ends <br />Those evil days still threatening woes to come; <br />Here, where the friendless feel no want of friends, <br />Where even the houseless wanderer finds a home! <br /> <br />What though no kindred crowd in sable forth, <br />And sigh, or seem to sigh, around his bier; <br />Though o'er his coffin with the humid earth <br />No children drop the unavailing tear? <br />Rather rejoice that here his sorrows cease, <br />Whom sickness, age, and poverty oppress'd; <br />Where death, the leveller, restores to peace <br />The wretch who living knew not where to rest. <br />Rejoice, that though an outcast spurn'd by fate, <br />Through penury's rugged path his race he ran; <br />In earth's cold bosom, equall'd with the great, <br />Death vindicates the insulted rights of man. <br />Rejoice, that though severe his earthly doom, <br />And rude, and sown with thorns the way he trod, <br />Now, (where unfeeling fortune cannot come) <br />He rests upon the mercies of his God.<br /><br />Charlotte Smith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dead-beggar/
