From the Congressional Cemetery Archives:
Wirt. At Baltimore, on Thursday, Dec. 30th, in the 16th year of her age, Agnes Cabell Wirt, youngest daughter of William Wirt, Esq. of that place.
Her morning of life had dawned in peace and love, embosomed among relations and friends, whose warmest affections were entwined around this young rosebud of loveliness. Her gentle heart had never been wounded by unrequited tenderness, and, as the bright visions of happiness with which her heaven-inspired fancy colored the future, were too pure, too glowing to be realized in this blighting world, Heaven translated her to a blissful realization of them before she had felt the withering reverse.
With a quickness of intellectual perception which seemed intuition--an activity and grasp of mind which, though young in years, gave her the mastery of every subject that came within the range of her inquisitive research--with a wonderful justness of discrimination, and an eloquent warmth of imagination, that shed its bright tinting over every circumstances of life--she united those deep and gushing fountains of feeling, which overflowed in benevolence to every human being, and created a fairy world of sensibility wherever she moved. Non ever felt the influence of that voice, attuned to harmony by Heaven's celestial sympathies, and listened to the enthusiasm of genius, that poured naturally and with a child's winning playfulness from her smiling lips, or breathed the enchanted atmosphere which her irresistable tenderness and loveliness created, as a halo of glory around her, without feeling that she was a spirit too shining bright, too passing lovely, to be long tramelled by these earthly fetters.
"Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if aught happy here) as good!
Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy--this group
Of bright ideas, flowers of Paradise,
As yet unforfeited, in one blaze we bind,
Kneel and present it to the skies, as all
We guess of Heaven--and these were all her owned
Like blossom'd trees o'erturned by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there,
Far lovelier."
Her life was a beautiful model of every moral excellence in active exercise. Soon had her young heart learned to adore and burn with rapt seraphs; and that which constituted her greatest earthly fascination, was the perpetual reaching up of her soul to Heaven. She had learned that it was saved to love God, and to serve him on earth--and when asked a few hours before her death if she had any thing to regret on earth? she answered "Nothing; my only wish is to live, if it be my Father's will, to adore and serve Him on earth--but," she added, (and every heart thrilled to the holy sweetness of her tones) "If it be not sinful, if it be not impatience of suffering, I want to go to Jesus, to love him and praise him to all eternity in Heaven."
Farewell, sweet seraph! Forgive this feeble effort of one, whose heart will long mourn thy early loss. Oh! may thy bereaved friends derive this moral from thy life and holy death, that "it is sweet to die the death of the righteous."
Wirt. At Baltimore, on Thursday, Dec. 30th, in the 16th year of her age, Agnes Cabell Wirt, youngest daughter of William Wirt, Esq. of that place.
Her morning of life had dawned in peace and love, embosomed among relations and friends, whose warmest affections were entwined around this young rosebud of loveliness. Her gentle heart had never been wounded by unrequited tenderness, and, as the bright visions of happiness with which her heaven-inspired fancy colored the future, were too pure, too glowing to be realized in this blighting world, Heaven translated her to a blissful realization of them before she had felt the withering reverse.
With a quickness of intellectual perception which seemed intuition--an activity and grasp of mind which, though young in years, gave her the mastery of every subject that came within the range of her inquisitive research--with a wonderful justness of discrimination, and an eloquent warmth of imagination, that shed its bright tinting over every circumstances of life--she united those deep and gushing fountains of feeling, which overflowed in benevolence to every human being, and created a fairy world of sensibility wherever she moved. Non ever felt the influence of that voice, attuned to harmony by Heaven's celestial sympathies, and listened to the enthusiasm of genius, that poured naturally and with a child's winning playfulness from her smiling lips, or breathed the enchanted atmosphere which her irresistable tenderness and loveliness created, as a halo of glory around her, without feeling that she was a spirit too shining bright, too passing lovely, to be long tramelled by these earthly fetters.
"Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if aught happy here) as good!
Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy--this group
Of bright ideas, flowers of Paradise,
As yet unforfeited, in one blaze we bind,
Kneel and present it to the skies, as all
We guess of Heaven--and these were all her owned
Like blossom'd trees o'erturned by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there,
Far lovelier."
Her life was a beautiful model of every moral excellence in active exercise. Soon had her young heart learned to adore and burn with rapt seraphs; and that which constituted her greatest earthly fascination, was the perpetual reaching up of her soul to Heaven. She had learned that it was saved to love God, and to serve him on earth--and when asked a few hours before her death if she had any thing to regret on earth? she answered "Nothing; my only wish is to live, if it be my Father's will, to adore and serve Him on earth--but," she added, (and every heart thrilled to the holy sweetness of her tones) "If it be not sinful, if it be not impatience of suffering, I want to go to Jesus, to love him and praise him to all eternity in Heaven."
Farewell, sweet seraph! Forgive this feeble effort of one, whose heart will long mourn thy early loss. Oh! may thy bereaved friends derive this moral from thy life and holy death, that "it is sweet to die the death of the righteous."
From the Congressional Cemetery Archives:
Wirt. At Baltimore, on Thursday, Dec. 30th, in the 16th year of her age, Agnes Cabell Wirt, youngest daughter of William Wirt, Esq. of that place.
Her morning of life had dawned in peace and love, embosomed among relations and friends, whose warmest affections were entwined around this young rosebud of loveliness. Her gentle heart had never been wounded by unrequited tenderness, and, as the bright visions of happiness with which her heaven-inspired fancy colored the future, were too pure, too glowing to be realized in this blighting world, Heaven translated her to a blissful realization of them before she had felt the withering reverse.
With a quickness of intellectual perception which seemed intuition--an activity and grasp of mind which, though young in years, gave her the mastery of every subject that came within the range of her inquisitive research--with a wonderful justness of discrimination, and an eloquent warmth of imagination, that shed its bright tinting over every circumstances of life--she united those deep and gushing fountains of feeling, which overflowed in benevolence to every human being, and created a fairy world of sensibility wherever she moved. Non ever felt the influence of that voice, attuned to harmony by Heaven's celestial sympathies, and listened to the enthusiasm of genius, that poured naturally and with a child's winning playfulness from her smiling lips, or breathed the enchanted atmosphere which her irresistable tenderness and loveliness created, as a halo of glory around her, without feeling that she was a spirit too shining bright, too passing lovely, to be long tramelled by these earthly fetters.
"Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if aught happy here) as good!
Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy--this group
Of bright ideas, flowers of Paradise,
As yet unforfeited, in one blaze we bind,
Kneel and present it to the skies, as all
We guess of Heaven--and these were all her owned
Like blossom'd trees o'erturned by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there,
Far lovelier."
Her life was a beautiful model of every moral excellence in active exercise. Soon had her young heart learned to adore and burn with rapt seraphs; and that which constituted her greatest earthly fascination, was the perpetual reaching up of her soul to Heaven. She had learned that it was saved to love God, and to serve him on earth--and when asked a few hours before her death if she had any thing to regret on earth? she answered "Nothing; my only wish is to live, if it be my Father's will, to adore and serve Him on earth--but," she added, (and every heart thrilled to the holy sweetness of her tones) "If it be not sinful, if it be not impatience of suffering, I want to go to Jesus, to love him and praise him to all eternity in Heaven."
Farewell, sweet seraph! Forgive this feeble effort of one, whose heart will long mourn thy early loss. Oh! may thy bereaved friends derive this moral from thy life and holy death, that "it is sweet to die the death of the righteous."
Wirt. At Baltimore, on Thursday, Dec. 30th, in the 16th year of her age, Agnes Cabell Wirt, youngest daughter of William Wirt, Esq. of that place.
Her morning of life had dawned in peace and love, embosomed among relations and friends, whose warmest affections were entwined around this young rosebud of loveliness. Her gentle heart had never been wounded by unrequited tenderness, and, as the bright visions of happiness with which her heaven-inspired fancy colored the future, were too pure, too glowing to be realized in this blighting world, Heaven translated her to a blissful realization of them before she had felt the withering reverse.
With a quickness of intellectual perception which seemed intuition--an activity and grasp of mind which, though young in years, gave her the mastery of every subject that came within the range of her inquisitive research--with a wonderful justness of discrimination, and an eloquent warmth of imagination, that shed its bright tinting over every circumstances of life--she united those deep and gushing fountains of feeling, which overflowed in benevolence to every human being, and created a fairy world of sensibility wherever she moved. Non ever felt the influence of that voice, attuned to harmony by Heaven's celestial sympathies, and listened to the enthusiasm of genius, that poured naturally and with a child's winning playfulness from her smiling lips, or breathed the enchanted atmosphere which her irresistable tenderness and loveliness created, as a halo of glory around her, without feeling that she was a spirit too shining bright, too passing lovely, to be long tramelled by these earthly fetters.
"Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if aught happy here) as good!
Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy--this group
Of bright ideas, flowers of Paradise,
As yet unforfeited, in one blaze we bind,
Kneel and present it to the skies, as all
We guess of Heaven--and these were all her owned
Like blossom'd trees o'erturned by vernal storm,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there,
Far lovelier."
Her life was a beautiful model of every moral excellence in active exercise. Soon had her young heart learned to adore and burn with rapt seraphs; and that which constituted her greatest earthly fascination, was the perpetual reaching up of her soul to Heaven. She had learned that it was saved to love God, and to serve him on earth--and when asked a few hours before her death if she had any thing to regret on earth? she answered "Nothing; my only wish is to live, if it be my Father's will, to adore and serve Him on earth--but," she added, (and every heart thrilled to the holy sweetness of her tones) "If it be not sinful, if it be not impatience of suffering, I want to go to Jesus, to love him and praise him to all eternity in Heaven."
Farewell, sweet seraph! Forgive this feeble effort of one, whose heart will long mourn thy early loss. Oh! may thy bereaved friends derive this moral from thy life and holy death, that "it is sweet to die the death of the righteous."
Advertisement
Advertisement
