[Page 187]

An EPITAPH.

QUAE te sub tenerâ rapuerunt, Paeta, juventâ,
O utinam me crudelia fata vocent;
Ut linquam terras invisaque lumina solis,
Utque tuus rursum corpore sim posito.
[Page 188]
Tu cave Laethaeo contingas ore liquore,
Et citò venturi sis memor, oro, viri
Te sequar obscurum per iter: dux tibi eunti
Fidus amor, tenebras lampade discutiens.
Thus TRANSLATED.
1 THEE, Paeta, death's relentless hand
2 Cut off in earliest bloom,
3 Oh! had the fates for me ordain'd
4 To share an equal doom;
5 With joy this busy world I'd leave,
6 This hated light resign,
7 To lay me in the peaceful grave,
8 And be for ever thine:
9 Do thou, if Lethe court thy lip,
10 To taste its stream forbear:
11 Still in thy soul his image keep,
12 Who hastes to meet thee there.
13 Safe o'er the dark and dreary shore,
14 In quest of thee I'll roam,
15 Love with his lamp shall run before,
16 And break the circling gloom.

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About this text

Title (in Source Edition): An EPITAPH.
Author: James Merrick
Themes: death
Genres: ballad metre; Chevy Chase stanza; imitation; translation; paraphrase
References: DMI 25733

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Source edition

Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. IV. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], pp. 187-188. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.004) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)

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The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.