Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN, by FRANCIS FAWKES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN, by                    
First Line: Short and precarious is the life of man
Last Line: And bloomed renewed in everlasting life.
Subject(s): Death; Epitaphs; Immortality; Youth; Dead, The


Short and precarious is the life of man;
The line seems fathomless, but proves a span;
A youth of follies, an old age of sorrow;
Like flowers, to-day we bloom, we die to-morrow.
Say then, what specious reasons can we give?
And why this longing, fond desire to live?
Blind as we are to what the Lord ordains,
We stretch our troubles, and prolong our pains.
But you, blest genius, dear departed shade,
Now wear a chaplet that shall never fade;
Now sit exalted in those realms of rest,
Where virtue reigns, and innocence is blest.
Relentless death's inevitable doom
Untimely wrapt you in the silent tomb,
Ere the first tender down o'erspread your chin,
A stranger yet to sorrow, and to sin.
As some sweet rose-bud, that has just begun
To ope its damask beauties in the sun,
Cropt by a virgin's hand, remains confest
A sweeter rosebud in her balmy breast,
Thus the fair youth, when Heaven required his breath,
Sunk, sweetly smiling in the arms of death;
For endless joys exchanging endless strife,
And bloomed renewed in everlasting life.





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