A Stone in St. Paul’s Graveyard

(New York)

Here Lyes the Body of
Iohn Jones the Son of
Iohn Jones Who Departed
This Life December the 13
1768 Aged 4 Years & 4 Months & 2 Days

Here, where enormous shadows creep,

He casts his childish shadow too:

How small he seems, beneath the steep

Great walls; his tender days, so few,

Lovingly numbered, every one—
John Jones, John Jones’s little son.

O sunlight on the Lightning’s wings!

Yet though our buildings skyward climb

Our heartbreaks are but little things

In the equality of Time.

The sum of life, for all men’s stones:
He was John Jones, son of John Jones.