An Epitaph

"His shatterd Empire thunders to the ground:     A myriad hearts peal laughter as it falls,     While red flags flutter on its ruined walls"

"The heart is hard that cannot feel     The bruising of a light appeal.     The heart is deaf that cannot hear     The splashing of a tiny tear"

"Spring, and the wispy clouds that fade away     And draw the ecstatic soul in pain to aspire     In maddening flight through heavens thin flood"

"Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand     Of many a hope that flared against the sky     To plant its heaven-storming banners high,"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"