Epitaph On John Harding, In The Churchyard Of Bremhill

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Title:     Epitaph On John Harding, In The Churchyard Of Bremhill
Author: William Lisle Bowles [More Titles by Bowles]

Lay down thy pilgrim staff upon this heap,
And till the morning of redemption sleep,
Old wayfarer of earth! From youth to age,
Long, but not weary, was thy pilgrimage,
Thy Christian pilgrimage; for faith and prayer
Alone enabled thee some griefs to bear.
Lone, in old age, without a husband's aid,
Thy wife shall pray beside thee to be laid;
For more than a kind father didst thou prove
To fourteen children of her faithful love.
May future fathers of the village trace
The same sure path to the same resting-place;
And future sons, taught in their strength to save,
Learn their first lesson from a poor man's grave!

April 1835.

[The end]
William Lisle Bowles's poem: Epitaph On John Harding, In The Churchyard Of Bremhill

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