Portal:Poetry/poem archive/Week 47 2006
Epitaph
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Stop, Christian passer-by : Stop, child of God,
And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he—
O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.—
That he who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death:
Mercy for praise--to be forgiven for fame—
He ask'd, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same.[1]
NOTE: "Mercy for praise"
— in the sense of "mercy instead of praise"
November 9, 1833, published 1834