The Parish Register by George Crabbe
page 58 of 84 (69%)
page 58 of 84 (69%)
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A lawyer haste, and in your way, a priest;
And let me die in one good work at least." She spake, and, trembling, dropp'd upon her knees, Heaven in her eye and in her hand her keys; And still the more she found her life decay, With greater force she grasp'd those signs of sway: Then fell and died!--In haste her sons drew near, And dropp'd, in haste, the tributary tear; Then from th' adhering clasp the keys unbound, And consolation for their sorrows found. Death has his infant-train; his bony arm Strikes from the baby-cheek the rosy charm; The brightest eye his glazing film makes dim, And his cold touch sets fast the lithest limb: He seized the sick'ning boy to Gerard lent, When three days' life, in feeble cries, were spent; In pain brought forth, those painful hours to stay, To breathe in pain and sigh its soul away! "But why thus lent, if thus recall'd again, To cause and feel, to live and die in pain?" Or rather say, Why grevious these appear, If all it pays for Heaven's eternal year; If these sad sobs and piteous sighs secure Delights that live, when worlds no more endure? The sister-spirit long may lodge below, And pains from nature, pains from reason, know: Through all the common ills of life may run, By hope perverted and by love undone; A wife's distress, a mother's pangs, may dread, And widow-tears, in bitter anguish, shed; |
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