Epitaph for Joseph Blacket, Late Poet and Shoemaker
STRANGER! behold, interred together,
The _souls_ of learning and of leather.
Poor Joe is gone, but left his _all_:
You'll find his relics in a _stall_.
His works were neat, and often found
Well stitched, and with _morocco_ bound.
Tread lightly--where the bard is laid--
He cannot mend the shoe he made;
Yet is he happy in his hole,
With verse immortal as his _sole_.
But still to business he held fast,
And stuck to Phoebus to the _last_.
Then who shall say so good a fellow
Was only "leather and prunella?"
For character--he did not lack it;
And if he did, 'twere shame to "Black-it."