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)

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!

Alas! What griefs must man endure!

Not even in forts he rests secure:—

Time dims the splendours of a crown,

And brings the loftiest rampart down.

Those teeth, dear girls—so much your care—

(With which no ivory can compare)

Like these (that once were Lady Hay’s)

May serve the belles of future days.

The breath once gone no art recalls!

Away we haste to vaulted walls:

Some future whim inverts the plain,

And stars behold our bones again.