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."