| |
| IT was a dismal, and a fearful night, | |
| Scarce could the Morn drive on th’ unwilling Light, | |
| When Sleep, Death’s image, left my troubled breast, | |
| By something liker Death possest. | |
| My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow, | 5 |
| And on my soul hung the dull weight | |
| Of some intolerable fate. | |
| What bell was that? Ah me! Too much I know. | |
| |
| My sweet companion, and my gentle peer, | |
| Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here, | 10 |
| Thy end for ever, and my life, to moan? | |
| O, thou hast left me all alone! | |
| Thy soul and body when death’s agony | |
| Besieged around thy noble heart, | |
| Did not with more reluctance part | 15 |
| Than I, my dearest Friend! do part from thee. | |
| |
| My dearest Friend, would I had died for thee! | |
| Life and this world henceforth will tedious be: | |
| Nor shall I know hereafter what to do | |
| If once my griefs prove tedious too. | 20 |
| Silent and sad I walk about all day, | |
| As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by | |
| Where their hid treasures lie; | |
| Alas, my treasures gone! why do I stay? | |
| |
| He was my Friend, the truest Friend on earth; | 25 |
| A strong and mighty influence joined our birth; | |
| Nor did we envy the most sounding name | |
| By friendship giv’n of old to fame. | |
| None but his brethern he and sisters knew, | |
| Whom the kind youth preferr’d to me; | 30 |
| And ev’n in that we did agree, | |
| For much above myself I lov’d them too. | |
| |
| Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights, | |
| How oft unwearied have we spent the nights? | |
| Till the Ledऐan stars so famed for love, | 35 |
| Wonder’d at us from above. | |
| We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine; | |
| But search of deep Philosophy, | |
| Wit, Eloquence, and Poetry, | |
| Arts which I lov’d, for they, my Friend, were thine. | 40 |
| |
| Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say, | |
| Have ye not seen us walking every day? | |
| Was there a tree about which did not know | |
| The love betwixt us two? | |
| Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade; | 45 |
| Or your sad branches thicker join, | |
| And into darksome shades combine, | |
| Dark as the grave wherein my Friend is laid. | |
| |
| Henceforth, no learned youths beneath you sing, | |
| Till all the tuneful birds t’ your boughs they bring; | 50 |
| No tuneful birds play with their wonted cheer, | |
| And call the learned youths to hear; | |
| No whistling winds through the glad branches fly, | |
| But all, with sad solemnity, | |
| Mute and unmoved be, | 55 |
| Mute as the grave wherein my Friend does lie. | |
| |
| To him my Muse made haste with every strain | |
| Whilst it was new, and warm yet from the brain. | |
| He lov’d my worthless rhymes, and like a friend | |
| Would find out something to commend. | 60 |
| Hence now, my Muse, thou canst not me delight; | |
| Be this my latest verse, | |
| With which I now adorn his hearse; | |
| And this my grief, without thy help, shall write. | |
| |
| Had I a wreath of bays about my brow | 65 |
| I should contemn that flourishing honour now, | |
| Condemn it to the fire, and joy to hear | |
| It rage and cackle there. | |
| Instead of bays, crown with sad cypress me; | |
| Cypress which tombs does beautify; | 70 |
| Not Phœbus griev’d so much as I, | |
| For him who first was made that mournful tree. | |
| |
| Large was his soul; as large a soul as e’er | |
| Submitted to inform a body here. | |
| High as the place ’twas shortly in Heav’n to have, | 75 |
| But low and humble as his grave. | |
| So high that all the virtues there did come | |
| As to their chiefest seat | |
| Conspicuous, and great; | |
| So low that for me too it made a room. | 80 |
| |
| He scorn’d this busy world below, and all | |
| That we, mistaken mortals, pleasure call; | |
| Was filled with innocent gallantry and truth, | |
| Triumphant o’er the sins of youth. | |
| He, like the stars, to which he now is gone, | 85 |
| That shine with beams like flame, | |
| Yet burn not with the same, | |
| Had all the light of youth, of the fire none. | |
| |
| Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught, | |
| As if for him knowledge had rather sought: | 90 |
| Nor did more learning ever crowded lie | |
| In such a short mortality. | |
| Whene’er the skilful youth discoursed or writ, | |
| Still did the notions throng | |
| About his eloquent tongue, | 95 |
| Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit. | |
| |
| So strong a wit did nature to him frame, | |
| As all things but his judgment overcame; | |
| His judgment like the heav’nly moon did show, | |
| Temp’ring that mighty sea below. | 100 |
| Oh had he lived in learning’s world, what bound | |
| Would have been able to controul | |
| His over-powering soul! | |
| We have lost in him arts that not yet are found. | |
| |
| His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit, | 105 |
| Yet never did his God or friends forget; | |
| And when deep talk and wisdom came in view, | |
| Retir’d, and gave to them their due. | |
| For the rich help of books he always took, | |
| Though his own searching mind before | 110 |
| Was so with notions written o’er | |
| As if wise Nature had made that her book. | |
| |
| So many virtues join’d in him, as we | |
| Can scarce pick here and there in history, | |
| More than old writers’ practice e’er could reach, | 115 |
| As much as they could ever teach. | |
| These did religion, queen of virtues sway, | |
| And all their sacred motions steer, | |
| Just like the first and highest sphere | |
| Which wheels about, and turns all heav’n one way. | 120 |
| |
| With as much zeal, devotion, piety, | |
| He always liv’d, as other saints do die. | |
| Still with his soul severe account he kept, | |
| Weeping all debts out ere he slept. | |
| Then down in peace and innocence he lay, | 125 |
| Like the Sun’s laborious light, | |
| Which still in water sets at night, | |
| Unsullied with his journey of the day. | |
| |
| Wondrous young man, why wert thou made so good, | |
| To be snatch’d hence ere better understood? | 130 |
| Snatch’d before half of thee enough was seen! | |
| Thou ripe, and yet thy life but green! | |
| Nor could thy friends take their last sad farewell, | |
| But danger and infectious death | |
| Maliciously seiz’d on that breath | 135 |
| Where life, spirit, pleasure, always us’d to dwell. | |
| |
| But happy Thou, ta’en from this frantic age, | |
| Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage! | |
| A fitter time for Heaven no soul e’er chose, | |
| The place now only free from those. | 140 |
| There ’mong the blest thou dost for ever shine, | |
| And, wheresoe’er thou casts thy view | |
| Upon that white and radiant crew, | |
| Seest not a soul clothed with more light than thine. | |
| |
| And, if the glorious saints cease not to know | 145 |
| Their wretched friends who fight with life below, | |
| Thy flame to me does still the same abide, | |
| Only more pure and rarefied. | |
| There, whilst immortal hymns thou dost rehearse, | |
| Thou dost with holy pity see | 150 |
| Our dull and earthly poesie, | |
| Where grief and misery can be join’d with verse. | |
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