| Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917. | | | | Stanzas Occasioned by Lord Bellamont’s, Lady Hay’s, and Other Skeletons Being Dug up in Fort George, N. Y., 1790 (abridged) | | By Philip Freneau |
| | | TO sleep in peace when life is fled | |
| Where shall our mouldering bones be laid— | |
| What care can shun—(I ask with tears) | |
| The shovels of succeeding years! | |
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| Alas! What griefs must man endure! | 5 |
| Not even in forts he rests secure:— | |
| Time dims the splendours of a crown, | |
| And brings the loftiest rampart down. | |
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| Those teeth, dear girls—so much your care— | |
| (With which no ivory can compare) | 10 |
| Like these (that once were Lady Hay’s) | |
| May serve the belles of future days. | |
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| The breath once gone no art recalls! | |
| Away we haste to vaulted walls: | |
| Some future whim inverts the plain, | 15 |
| And stars behold our bones again. | | | | |
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