Poems (Gould, 1833)/Whitefield's Remains
WHITEFIELD'S REMAINS.[1]
Ye sacred relics, not with foot profane Would I disturb the quiet of the dead;Where, wrapped in shades and stillness ye have lain, Till more than half a century hath fled!
I have no vainly curious eye to see, How strange the works of time and death appear;To find the sentence of mortality, 'Ashes to ashes!' executed here.
Yet, I from infancy have longed to look, For once, on you, then bid a long farewell;Since 't was from you, great Whitefield's spirit took Her flight to mansions where the blessed dwell!
Ye were her earthen vessel!—and ye bore That goodly treasure on, from clime to clime!Ye were the fine-wrought vesture that she wore, And gently dropped, as closed the scene of time.
Here, hallowed dust, thou still hast slumbered on, While, o'er thy rest, the beauteous feet of those,Who brought salvation's news, have stood; then gone, Tired with life's journey, to the grave's repose.
And wilt thou linger yet, till he, who stands Above thee now, the gospel to proclaim,Has ceased to lift in prayer his holy hands, And monumental marble speaks his name?
Oh! wait not this[2]—but go and sleep unseen, Deep in the bosom of thy mother earth!Let nature deck thy couch with living green, Till, changed, th' archangel's trump shall call thee forth!
And now, farewell! I have been told by thee, The things a thousand tongues would fail to say:Thou bid'st the mortal part its value see— The soul mount up where Whitefield's led the way!
- ↑ The remains of the Rev. George Whitefield are deposited beneath the pulpit of the Church of the First Presbyterian Society in Newburyport, Mass. in which there is a marble cenotaph to his memory.
- ↑ The removal of these remains to the public burial ground, was contemplated at the time this was written.