Yet, if the humblest poet’s theme
  Be welcome in Eliza’s name;
Then, angel, give the cheering gleam,
  For thy approving smile is fame!

ELEGY

On THE DEATH OF

ABRAHAM GOLDSMID, ESQ.

When stern Misfortune, monitress severe! 
  Dissolves Prosperity’s enchanting dreams,
And, chased from Man’s probationary sphere,
  Fair Hope withdraws her vivifying beams.

If then, untaught to bend at Heaven’s high will,
  The desp’rate mortal dares the dread unknown,
To future fate appeals from present ill,
  And stands, uncall’d, before th’ Eternal throne!

Shall justice there immutably decide? 
  Dread thought! which Reason trembles to explore,
She feels, be mercy granted or denied,
  ’Tis her’s in dumb submission to adore.

Yet, could the self-doom’d victim be forgiven
  His final error, for his merits past;
Could virtuous life, propitiating Heaven
  With former deeds, extenuate the last: 

Then GOLDSMID!  Mercy, to thy humble shrine,
  Angel of heaven beloved, should wing her flight,
Should in her bosom bid thy head recline,
  And waft thee onward to the realms of light.

And, oh! could human intercession plead,
  Breathed ardent to’ards that undiscover’d shore,
What hearts unnumber’d for thy fate that bleed,
  Would warm oblations for thy pardon pour.

Misfortune’s various tribes thy worth should tell,
  Whose acts to no peculiar sect confined;
Impartial, with expansive bounty fell,
  Like heaven’s refreshing dews on all mankind.

Where stern Disease his rankling arrows sped,
  While Want, with hard inexorable band,
Strew’d keener thorns on Pain’s afflictive bed,
  And urged the flight of life’s diminish’d sand.

By hostile stars oppress’d, where Talent toil’d,
  Encountering fate with perseverance vain;
The Merchant’s hopes, when War’s dire arm despoil’d,
  Or tempests ’whelm’d in the remorseless main.

GOLDSMID! thy hand benign assuagement spread,
  Sustain’d pale sickness, drooping o’er the tomb;
Raised modest Merit from his lowly shed,
  And gave Misfortune’s blasted hopes to bloom.

Yet wealth, too oft perverted from its end,
  Suspends the noblest functions of the soul;
Where, chill’d as Apathy’s cold frosts, extends,
  Compassion’s sacred stream forgets to roll.

And oft, where seeming Pity moves the mind,
  From self’s mean source the liberal current flows;
While Ostentation, insolently kind,
  Wounds while he soothes, insults while he bestows.

But thy free bounty, undebased by pride,
  Prompt to anticipate the meek request,
Unask’d the wants of modest Worth supplied,
  And spared the pang that shook the suppliant’s breast.

Yet say! on Fortune’s orb, which o’er thy head
  Blazed forth erewhile pre-eminently bright,
When dark Adversity her eclipse spread,
  And veil’d its splendours in petrific night!