Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear
Shall find thee through all changes of the year: 10
This Oak points out thy grave; the silent Tree
Will gladly stand a monument of thee.

I pray'd for thee, and that thy end were past;
And willingly have laid thee here at last:
For thou hadst liv'd, till every thing that chears
In thee had yielded to the weight of years;
Extreme old age had wasted thee away,
And left thee but a glimmering of the day;
Thy ears were deaf; and feeble were thy knees,--
saw thee stagger in the summer breeze, 20
Too weak to stand against its sportive breath,
And ready for the gentlest stroke of death.
It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed;
Both Man and Woman wept when Thou wert dead;
Not only for a thousand thoughts that were,
Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share;
But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee,
Found scarcely any where in like degree!

For love, that comes to all; the holy sense,
Best gift of God, in thee was most intense; 30
A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind,
A tender sympathy, which did thee bind
Not only to us Men, but to thy Kind:
Yea, for thy Fellow-brutes in thee we saw
The soul of Love, Love's intellectual law:--
Hence, if we wept, it was not done in shame;