The fearful lessons of man's fate

Born in Connecticut in 1803, Harvey D. Little did not move to Ohio until he was 12 or 13 years old. He would, however, spend the rest of his life there, mostly in the city of Columbus. A lawyer by training, he was a newspaperman and editor by trade. His main employment was with the Eclectic and Medical Botanist, which he managed until his death due to cholera on August 22, 1833. He was 31 years old and left behind a wife and young child (two other children had died young; by some accounts, they died only days earlier).

He wrote poetry as well, though he never published them in book form. Most were published in a St. Clairsville newspaper under the pseudonym Valesques. A member of the Columbus Typographical Society, Little was given a memorial three months after his death by that organization.

His poem "Away, away, I scorn them all":

Away, away, I scorn them all,
  The mirthful board, the joyous glee;
The laughter of the festive hall;
  The long wild shouts of revelry;
To their vain worshipers they bring
Seasons of bitter sorrowing.

But, oh, by far the wiser part,
  To visit that secluded spot,
Where death hath quench'd some faithful heart,
  And closed, for aye, its varied lot:
For there, beside the funeral urn,
Lessons of wisdom we may learn.

The brief but busy scenes of life—
  Its fickle pleasures, and its woes—
Its mingled happiness and strife—
  Its fearful and its final close,
Pass through the mind in swift review,
With all their colorings strictly true.

We see the littleness of man—
  The end of all his pride and power:—
Scarce has his pilgrimage began
  E'er death's dark clouds upon him lower;
And rank, and pomp, and greatness, flee
Like meteor gleams!—and where is he?

Yes, where is he, whose mighty mind
  Could soar beyond the bounds of space,
And in some heavenly planet find
  The spirit's final resting place?
Gone! gone, in darkness, down to dust!
"Ashes to ashes," mingle must.

Well may we learn from life's last scene,
  The fearful lessons of man's fate:
How frail the barriers between
  The living and the dead's estate.
The elastic air—the vital breath—
Is but the link 'twixt life and death.