DR. WILLIAM SIMPSON

DR. WILLIAM SIMPSON

DIED 30TH MARCH, 1866

“Death will seize the Doctor, too.” – Shakespeare

 As the last low sunset fades away,
And dim-eyed twilight usurps its room,
Who hasn’t felt, as it were, a gloom
Shadow his soul like a misspent day?

 It is not a breath that leaves a fear
It is not a blot that leaves a stain;
‘Tis a deep but an unappealing pain,
A solemn woe, like an unshed tear.

 Such is the feeling that will arise
In the inmost room of the gentle heart,
When Death has sharpened his surest dart,
And all that is mortal of genius dies.

 All that’s mortal. And what remains?
O surely much, since he that is gone
In the people’s heart commands a throne
A place where Mind writes her brightest names.

Kind to affliction, to friendship true;
Helping necessity over the gulf;
Grasping the lambs from the ravening wolf;
Doing the deeds that good men do.

The flames of genius! O too soon
Did they burn away thro’ his “mortal coil;”
Sought above a more grateful soil
And nipped his life in its early June.

‘Tis done. O ye who oft times possess
The poetic glow and the manna bread,
He was your brother that now is dead,
Weep him a tear: can ye do less?

 S.F.G. Cullybackey 3rd April 1866

 

 

 

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