AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MRS DACRE. Susanna Blamire Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Blamire, Susanna, 1747-1794. The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire “The muse of Cumberland.” Now for the first time collected by Henry Lonsdale, M.D. with a preface, memoir, and notes by Patrick Maxwell, ... Edinburgh John Menzies, 61 Princes Street; R. Tyas, London; D. Robertson, Glasgow; and C. Thurnam, Carlisle. MDCCCXLII. 1842 pp. 147-148.

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AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MRS DACRE .

" I bewail not more than I console . "

YES ! it is done ; I heard the doom severe , The tyrant fell had struck the fatal blow ; What flinty heart restrains the starting tear — What breast forbids the heaving sigh to flow ! Hail dark-ey'd grief ! welcome each bursting groan ! Ye dancing hours — ye jocund smiles away ! Here , Melancholy , fix thy pensive throne ; Lo ! fair Nerine moulders into clay . Yes , she is gone ! that bosom beats no more Where meek-ey'd peace and smiling patience sat ; That every pang with resolution bore , And gently met the ruthless hand of fate . 'Twas her's to still life's rude tempestuous wave , Where sorrows thicken , and where ills descend ; To soothe the cup that fate or fortune gave , While resignation stamp'd her virtue's friend . 'Twas her's to tread the mazy paths of truth , Where bright religion darts her fulgent rays ; 'Twas her's to guide the tottering steps of youth , Whilst children's children lisp'd out virtue's praise . Let the lone tenant of some murky cell Pour out his cheerless life in idle prayer ; With gloomy fear and superstition dwell , The friend to woe and comfortless despair . Not such oblations Providence receives ; Not such the breast that heaven delights to scan ; The purest incense fair benevolence gives — The heart that beats to be of use to man . Thus liv'd Nerine , thus lamented died , But ah ! not prayers avert the doom severe ; Here scan mortality , ye sons of pride , Whilst virtue weeps o'er fair Nerine's bier . But though she bow'd to Nature's stern behest , The grizzly tyrant vaunts an empty prize ; Her spotless memory lives in every breast , Her soul emp'real seeks its native skies .