The poem stages a whispered conversation between the dying Bishop Atterbury and the spirit of his daughter, who has already passed. She tells him they have lived and loved deeply, and now, as he nears death, she asks him to surrender his heart to heaven—but also to hold onto their shared love until his body joins her dust. He answers with a promise, calling her his “spotless ghost” and saying that losing her cut deeper than losing fortune, friends, or even his homeland. Yet just as he seems to let go of every earthly tie, he catches himself: there is one wish left. With his last breath he prays, “Save my country, Heaven!” The exchange blends intimate grief with a final surge of political longing. The mood is hushed and tender, shadowed by exile, but it lifts sharply through that dying murmur of patriotism—love and loss colliding at the very edge of silence.
Epitaph. on Dr Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, Who Died in Exile at Paris, 1732. — Summary
SHE.
Yes, we have lived--one pang, and then we part! May Heaven, dear father! now have all thy heart. Yet ah! how once we loved, remember still, Till you are dust like me.
HE. Dear shade! I will: Then mix this dust with thine--O spotless ghost! O more than fortune, friends, or country lost! Is there on earth one care, one wish beside? Yes--Save my country, Heaven! --He said, and died.