On Mary Arundell.
"Man to the marigold compar'd may be,
Man may be liken'd to the laurel-tree,
Both feade the eye, both please the optic sense,
Both soon decay, both suddenly fleet hence.
What then infer you from her name but this,—
Man fades away,—man a dry laurel is[1]."
- ↑ Alluding to the fact that the letters of her name spell this sentence.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin's Epitaph on himself:—
"The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer,—like the covering of an old book, its contents torn out, and stript of its lettering and guilding,—lies here, food for worms; yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author."
"Grim Death took me without any warning,—
I was well at night, and dead at nine in the morning."
"'Twas by a fall I caught my death,—
No man can tell his time or breath.
I might have died as soon as then,
If I had had physicians men."
"Pain was my portion,
Physic my food,
Groans was my devotion,
Drugs did me no good.
Christ was my Physician,
Knew what way was best,—
To ease me of my pain,
He took my soul to rest."
