Browse the Archive
"Unhappy Close of Life"
Edward Haines's finely penned copy of "Unhappy Close of Life," by the Scottish poet Robert Blair (1699–1746), was likely taken from The English Reader: Or Pieces in Prose and Poetry, a collection of poems and essays widely reprinted throughout the United States during the early nineteenth century, and, according to the editor, "designed to assist young persons to read with propriety and effect; to improve their language and sentiments; and to inculcate some of the most important principles of piety and virtue."
Student: Edward Haines
Date: 1819
Collection: Copies of Literary Work
Page: 9
Transcript
UNHAPPY CLOSE OF LIFE
How shocking must they summons be, O death
To him that is at ease in his possessions!
Who counting on long years of pleasure here,
Is quite unfinished for the world to come!
IN THAT DREAD MOMENT
How the frantic soul
Roams round the walls of her clay tenement;
Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help;
But shrieks in vain! How wistfully she looks
On all she’s leaving, now no longer hers!
A little longer; yet a little longer;
O might she stay to wash away her stains;
And fit her for her passage
MOURNFUL SIGHT
Her very eyes weep blood; and ev’ry groan
She heaves is big with horror. But the foe,
Like a staunch murd’rer steady to his purpose,
Pursues her close, thro’ ev’ry lane of life;
Nor misses once the track, but presses on,
Till, forc’d at last to the tremendous verge,
At last she sinks to
EVERLASTING RUIN
Edward Haines
New York
February 1819