Epitaph At Welwyn, Hertfordshire.

            If fond of what is rare, attend!
                    Here lies an honest man,
                            Of perfect piety,
                        Of lamblike patience,
                    My friend, James Barker;
            To whom I pay this mean memorial,
            For what deserves the greatest.
                                An example
Which shone through all the clouds of fortune,
                    Industrious in low estate,
    The lesson and reproach of those above him.
                        To lay this little stone
                            Is my ambition;
                            While others rear
The polish'd marbles of the great!
                    Vain pomp;
A turf o'er virtue charms us more.

            E. Y. 1749.

Edward Young

Edward Young was an English poet, best remembered for his poem "Night-Thoughts". Born in 1683, he was educated at Westminster School and later at Oxford University. Young's work is considered part of the Augustan and early Romantic eras. His philosophical and religious reflections in "Night-Thoughts" greatly influenced European literature. Young also wrote plays and essays and was an ordained minister. He passed away on April 5, 1765.

Edward Young

Ocean: An Ode

Edward Young, Simple Poetry

The Stateman's Creed.

Edward Young, Simple Poetry

The Force Of Religion; Or, Vanquished Love. Book II.

Edward Young, Simple Poetry

Epistles To Mr. Pope. Epistle II. From Oxford.

Edward Young, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Epitaph X. On Mr Elijah Fenton,[1] At Easthamstead, In Berks, 1730.

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, Here lies an honest man:
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,
Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and great:
Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease,
Content with science in the vale of peace.
Calmly he look'd on either life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear;
From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfied,
Thank'd Heaven that he had lived, and that he died.

Alexander Pope

Epitaph VII. On The Monument Of The Honourable Egbert Digby, And His Sister Mary.

Erected By Their Father The Lord Digby, In The Church Of Sherborne, In Dorsetshire, 1727.

Go! fair example of untainted youth,
Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth:
Composed in sufferings, and in joy sedate,
Good without noise, without pretension great.
Just of thy word, in every thought sincere,
Who knew no wish but what the world might hear:
Of softest manners, unaffected mind,
Lover of peace, and friend of human kind:
Go live! for Heaven's eternal year is thine,^[1]
Go, and exalt thy moral to divine.

And thou, bless'd maid! attendant on his doom,
Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb,
Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!
Go then, where only bliss sincere is known!
Go, where to lov...

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Epitaph - In The Chapel - Yard Of Langdale, Westmoreland

By playful smiles, (alas! too oft
A sad heart's sunshine, by a soft
And gentle nature, and a free
Yet modest hand of charity,
Through life was Owen Lloyd endeared
To young and old; and how revered
Had been that pious spirit, a tide
Of humble mourners testified,
When, after pains dispensed to prove
The measure of God's chastening love,
Here, brought from far, his corse found rest,
Fulfillment of his own request;
Urged less for this Yew's shade, though he
Planted with such fond hope the tree;
Less for the love of stream and rock,
Dear as they were, than that his Flock,
When they no more their Pastor's voice
Could hear to guide them in their choice
Through good and evil, help might have,
Admonished, from his silent grave,
Of righteousness, of ...

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Epitaph On H. Walmsley, Esq. - In Alverstoke Church, Hants.

Oh! they shall ne'er forget thee, they who knew
Thy soul benevolent, sincere, and true;
The poor thy kindness cheered, thy bounty fed,
Whom age left shivering in its dreariest shed;
Thy friends, who sorrowing saw thee, when disease
Seemed first the genial stream of life to freeze,
Pale from thy hospitable home depart,
Thy hand still open, and yet warm thy heart!
But how shall she her love, her loss express,
Thy widow, in this uttermost distress,
When she with anguish hears her lisping train
Upon their buried father call in vain!
She wipes the tear despair had forced to flow,
She lifts her look beyond this vale of woe,
And rests (while humbled in the dust she kneels)
On Him who only knows how much she feels.

William Lisle Bowles

Epitaphs IX. Pause, Courteous Spirit

Pause, courteous Spirit! Balbi supplicates
That Thou, with no reluctant voice, for him
Here laid in mortal darkness, wouldst prefer
A prayer to the Redeemer of the world.
This to the dead by sacred right belongs;
All else is nothing. Did occasion suit
To tell his worth, the marble of this tomb
Would ill suffice: for Plato's lore sublime,
And all the wisdom of the Stagyrite,
Enriched and beautified his studious mind:
With Archimedes also he conversed
As with a chosen friend, nor did he leave
Those laureat wreaths ungathered which the Nymphs
Twine near their loved Permessus. Finally,
Himself above each lower thought uplifting,
His ears he closed to listen to the songs
Which Sion's Kings did consecrate of old;
And his Permessus found on Lebanon.
A bless...

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Epitaph I. On Charles Earl Of Dorset, In The Church Of Withyam, In Sussex.

'His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere!'

VIRG.

Dorset, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Bless'd satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd vice had his hate and pity too.
Blest courtier! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease.
Blest peer! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patriots still, or poets, deck the line.

Alexander Pope