JT-43-AN ELEGY,

AN ELEGY, On the death of MRS. NESMITH, who departed this life May, 1822.

Some poets choose the names of noble birth,
To sound their fame far thro’ the list’ning earth,
And tell they conquered, or they rul’d a throne,
While trembling thousands their dominion own.

But I will sing a name in earth remote,
(O, for poetic fire! to touch my note,)
And tell the virtue and the grace that lie
Concealed from notice of the public eye.
An aged female, youthful once and gay,
That bloom’d as roses in the vernal day;
Her youth she spent in fashion’s flow’ry road,
Perhaps forgetful of herself and God!

She early wedded to a man unknown,
To smiling fortune, or to high renown,
Became obscure, and by the world oppressed,
By hard misfortune, and by sin, distressed:
Her worldly prospects from her cottage fled,
Like noon-day shadows, all her pleasures sped,
And left her hopeless in the world below,
To drink unmixed the cup of human woe.

She found this life a burden hard to bear,
And night had sunk in clouds of dark despair;
But, O! that God who rules in worlds on high,
Loud bade her stop, for she should never die;
That word from Heaven like ten-fold thunders roll,
Addressed the sorrows of her sinking soul:
"Long hast thou lingered on this weeping vale,
Where grief abounds and thy life’s comforts fail;
But thou hast sinn’d, and sinn’d a thousand ways--
Withheld from God thy service and thy praise.
Dost thou not fear to stand before his throne,
Where all thy crimes must shortly be made known?
This life at which thou hast repin’d so long,
For thy eternal bliss I will prolong."

These words address’d, like brilliant floods of day,
From off her soul rent all the clouds away;
She then beheld herself--herself accused,
She saw her Savior by her sins abused;
Not fit to live, and now afraid to die,
Aloud for mercy she began to cry--
She sought a blessing such as God bestows,
And found redemption from her former woes;
Her soul releas’d, to love divine restored,
The world forgotten was no more deplored.
By grace illum’d, by grace of God forgiven,
She look’d for her reward laid up in heaven.

Like patient lambs to strokes of death resign,
She bears her grief and doth no more repine;
The pomp of fashion and the lap of ease,
Her humble soul could now no longer please--
This earth too mean to seek a resting place,
She found a rest--a rest in heavenly grace.
Renew’d in heart, she leads a pious life,
A fondling mother and a virtuous wife.

Like well-oil’d lamps bestow a brilliant light,
To show the path in a bewilder’d night,
So her example all around her blaz’d,
While saints admir’d, and careless sinners gaz’d,
She read the Bible, and by faith she found,
Celestial manna flow’d on earthly ground;
She built her hope on that foundation stone,
And sought the aid which comes from God alone.

Like eagles soar in their lofty flight,
Leave meaner prospects far beneath their sight.
So did her soul and her affections rise,
Nor found a home beneath the upper skies.
She was a Christian, and to Christians join’d,
And not in word--to works of love inclin’d,
No selfish sect, nor human creed, could hold
Her pious soul from loving all the fold.
No grace nor virtue that adorns our race,
But seem’d with her to find a welcome place.

When health and friends would in her cottage meet,
She sat like Mary at her Savior’s feet;
In sickness she resigned herself to God,
And bore with patience the afflicting rod,
When death approach’d, with age her head was gray,
She met the stroke without the least dismay.
A husband, sons and daughters wept around,
A mother who had won the heavenly ground.
They saw the triumphs of a Savior’s blood,
Disparting all the rage of Jordan’s flood!
They saw a saint triumphant gain the shore,
Where tempests rage, and storms arise no more,
They heard her last expiring words declare,
"Come follow me, a crown of glory wear."

If absent souls can speak to mortal’s ear,
O! give attention and profoundly hear;
Methinks I hear the sister’s voice so sweet,
Where ransom’d saints and angels kindly meet,
Recounting all her worldly troubles o’er,
Where souls in triumph are distress’d no more.

Do I imagine that I hear her say--
"O, children, stop, if in the downward way!
Return from sin, nor onward farther go,
Lest you may sink in dreadful depths of wo;
My pious son, my pious daughter, too,
Hold on your way, your Savior still pursue;
Not long till death shall ope the gates of bliss,
And let our ransom’d souls each other kiss.

Here pains forgotten--souls exalted high,
Receive full pleasure in the boundless sky;
Stand firm, my children, in a tempter’s land,
Go on to conquer--reach the heavenly strand,
And here we’ll meet on King Immanuel’s shore,
Where grief, and pain, and death distress no more."