Approach: behold this marble. Know ye not
The features? Hath not oft his faithful tongue
Told you the fashion of your own estate,

The secrets of your bosom? Here then, round
His monument with reverence while ye stand,
Say to each other: "This was Shakespeare's form;
"Who walk'd in every path of human life,
"Felt every passion; and to all mankind
"Doth now, will ever, that experience yield,
"Which his own genius only could acquire."

YE powers unseen, to whom the bards of Greece
Erected altars; ye, who to the mind

More lofty views unfold, and prompt the heart
With more divine emotions; if erewhile

Not quite unpleasing have my votive rites

Of you been deem'd, when oft this lonely seat
Το

you I consecrated; then vouchsafe

Here with your instant energy to crown
My happy solitude. It is the hour

When most I love to invoke you, and have felt

Most frequent your glad ministry divine.

The air is calm: the sun's unveiled orb

Shines in the middle heaven. The harvest round

Stands quiet, and among the golden sheaves

The reapers lie reclined. The neighbouring groves

Are mute: nor even a linnet's random strain
Echoeth amid the silence. Let me feel

Your influence, ye kind powers! Aloft in heaven
Abide ye ? or on those transparent clouds
Pass ye from hill to hill? or on the shades
Which yonder elms cast o'er the lake below
Do you converse retired? From what loved haunt
Shall I expect you? Let me once more feel
Your influence, O ye kind inspiring powers!
And I will guard it well, nor shall a thought
Rise in my mind, nor shall a passion move
Across my bosom unobserved, unstored

By faithful memory. And then at some
More active moment, will I call them forth
Anew; and join them in majestic forms,

And give them utterance in harmonious strains,
That all mankind shall wonder at your sway.

Lo! where this silent marble weeps,

A friend, a wife, a mother, sleeps; A heart, within whose sacred cell The peaceful virtues loved to dwell: Affection warm, and faith sincere, And soft humanity, were there.

In agony, in death, resigned,

She felt the wound she left behind.

Her infant image here below,

Sits smiling on a father's woe;

Whom what awaits, while yet he strays

Along this lonely vale of days?

A pang to secret sorrow dear;

A sigh, an unavailing tear;

Till time shall every grief remove,

With life, with memory, and with love.