The Enquirer

COMMUNICATION.
To the memory of Octavia St. Clare Dandridge:
who died September the 16th, 1806.
aged 3 years and 6 months.
How bless'd her state in innocence array'd,
In life unstain'd, in death secure from dread;
From human ills removed, from every woe,
Which hoary age is doom'd to undergo;
Compos'd, serene, she gains the happy shore,
Where sickness, pain, and sorrow are no more !
Lovely in death. she charms the weeping eye
If this be death. who would not wish to die ?
No boding horrors dwell upon her brow,
Who would not die to be what she is now?
What tho' in dust the lov'd remains must lie,
Hid from its tender Mother's longing eye;
What tho' for ages to the grave consign'd,
The general rendezvous of all mankind;
Blasted, like some fair flower in early bloom,
She fades beneath the winter of the tomb.
With calmness then, this breathless form survey,
Know Christ Shall raise this consecrated clay,
In finish'd Beauty, never to decay.
Destin'd more griefs and longer toils to know,
The wretched stay behind, the happy go.
Good Heaven! this mystery of fate explain,
Nor let me seem to mourn the dead in vain :
Friend after friend from me is torn away,
No year, no month, but marks one fatal day!
What wait I for, some happier world in view,
Warns me that man is blind, that God is true.