What mean those tears which flow from every eye? Why grieve the just, what makes the righteous sigh? Fair candour weeps and mildness droops her head, And ev'ry virtue mourns that DODD is dead. He's gone, alas! whose soul the sacred cell, Where piety and wisdom lov'd to dwell: He's gone, alas! whose hours no pleasure knew, But what his mind from virtuous actions drew: He's gone, alas! whose hand so often bore, The gen'rous portion to the friendless poor; He's gone, alas! the patron of distress, The friend and father of the fatherless: He's gone alas! — but O let pity here Breathe the soft sigh and drop the gen'rous tear; Let censure cease and henceforth fear to blame, Nor scandal ever violate his fame; But let this sentence claim a just pretence, The best have err'd in more than one offence; His was but one — one crime alas! was all; This seal'd his doom and this assign'd his fall; Yet such his virtues, in th' extreme we find As render saints superior to their kind. Brabazon's row.
