Ye are as destitute of information 

 As is the lifeless subject of my thoughts! 

 The subject of my thoughts? Yes—there he lies 

 As free from life, as if he ne'er had lived. 

 Where are his friends and where his old acquaintance 

 Who borrowed from his strength, when in the yoke, 

 With weary pace the steep ascent they climbed? 

 Where are the gay companions of his prime, 

 Who with him ambled o'er the flowery turf, 

 And proudly snorting, passed the way worn hack, 

 With haughty brow; and, on his ragged coat 

 Looked with contemptuous scorn? Oh yonder see, 

 Carelessly basking in the mid–day sun 

 They lie, and heed him not;—little thinking 

 While there they triumph in the blaze of noon. 

 How soon the dread annihilating hour 

 Will come, and death seal up their eyes, 

 Like his, forever. Now moralizer 

 Retire! yet first proclaim this sacred truth; 

  Chance rules not over Death; but, when a fly 

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