[Page 196]

ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE.

BY THE SAME.
1 TAKE, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear;
2 Take that best gift which heaven so lately gave:
3 To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care
4 Her faded form; she bow'd to taste the wave
a Mrs. Mason died at Bristol Wells, while drinking a glass of the waters.
,
5 And died. Does Youth, does Beauty read the line?
6 Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?
7 Speak, dead Maria, breathe a strain divine,
8 Ev'n from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.
9 Bid them be chaste, be innocent like thee;
10 Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move;
11 And if so fair, from vanity so free,
12 So firm in friendship, and so fond in love;
13 Tell them, tho' 'tis an awful thing to die,
14 ('Twas ev'n to thee) yet the dread path once trod,
15 Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,
16 And bids the pure in heart behold their God.

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About this text

Title (in Source Edition): ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE.
Author: William Mason
Themes: death
Genres: heroic quatrain; epitaph
References: DMI 27067

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Source edition

Pearch, G. A collection of poems in four volumes. By several hands. Vol. I. [The second edition]. London: printed for G. Pearch, 1770, p. 196. 4v. ; 8⁰. (ESTC T116245; DMI 1122; OTA K093079.001) (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [(OC) 280 o.788].)

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The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.