As Gilead’s plant in every season gives
Its balmy fragrance to the ambient air
And still continues, while its foliage lives
To shed its unexhausted perfume there.
So may those charms, which in life’s early day
Please the chaste eye, and wake the feeling heart
Continue still thro’ life’s protracted way
From youth to age, their virtues to impart.
And when you wander thro’ the Muse’s page
Oh may my memory soothe your gentle breast
Whether I still tread life’s long lingering stage,
Or in the peaceful tomb my ashes rest.
W.C.