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| EXCELLENT Brutus, of all human race, | |
| The best till nature was improved by grace, | |
| Till men above themselves faith raised more | |
| Then reason above beasts before. | |
| Virtue was thy life’s centre, and from thence | 5 |
| Did silently and constantly dispense | |
| The gentle vigorous influence | |
| To all the wide and fair circumference: | |
| And all the parts upon it leaned so easily, | |
| Obey’d the mighty force so willingly | 10 |
| That none could discord or disorder see | |
| In all their contrariety. | |
| Each had his motion natural and free, | |
| And the whole no more moved then the whole world could be. | |
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| From thy strict rule some think that thou didst swerve | 15 |
| (Mistaken honest men!) in Cæsar’s blood; | |
| What mercy could the tyrant’s life deserve, | |
| From him who kill’d himself rather than serve? | |
| Th’ heroic exaltations of good | |
| Are so far from understood, | 20 |
| We count them vice: alas, our sight’s so ill, | |
| That things which swiftest move seem to stand still. | |
| We look not upon virtue in her height, | |
| On her supreme idea, brave and bright, | |
| In the original light: | 25 |
| But as her beams reflected pass | |
| Through our own nature or ill-custom’s glass. | |
| And ’tis no wonder so, | |
| If with dejected eye | |
| In standing pools we seek the sky, | 30 |
| That stars, so high above, should seem to us below. | |
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| Can we stand by and see | |
| Our mother robbed, and bound, and ravish’d be, | |
| Yet not to her assistance stir, | |
| Pleas’d with the strength and beauty of the ravisher? | 35 |
| Or shall we fear to kill him, if before | |
| The cancell’d name of friend he bore? | |
| Ingrateful Brutus do they call? | |
| Ingrateful Cæsar who could Rome enthral! | |
| An act more barbarous and unnatural | 40 |
| (In th’ exact balance of true virtue tried) | |
| Than his successor Nero’s parricide! | |
| There’s none but Brutus could deserve | |
| That all men else should wish to serve, | |
| And Cæsar’s usurped place to him should proffer; | 45 |
| None can deserv’t but he who would refuse the offer. | |
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| Ill fate assumed a body thee t’affright, | |
| And wrapt itself i’ th’ terrors of the night, | |
| ‘I’ll meet thee at Philippi,’ said the spright; | |
| ‘I’ll meet thee there,’ saidst thou, | 50 |
| With such a voice, and such a brow, | |
| As put the trembling ghost to sudden flight, | |
| It vanish’d, as a taper’s light | |
| Goes out when spirits appear in sight. | |
| One would have thought t’had heard the morning crow, | 55 |
| Or seen her well-appointed star | |
| Come marching up the eastern hill afar. | |
| Nor durst it in Philippi’s field appear, | |
| But unseen attacked thee there. | |
| Had it presumed in any shape thee to oppose, | 60 |
| Thou wouldst have forced it back upon thy foes: | |
| Or slain’t like Cæsar, though it be | |
| A conqueror and a monarch mightier far than he. | |
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| What joy can human things to us afford, | |
| When we see perish thus by odd events, | 65 |
| Ill men, and wretched accidents, | |
| The best cause and best man that ever drew a sword? | |
| When we see | |
| The false Octavius, and wild Anthony, | |
| God-like Brutus, conquer thee? | 70 |
| What can we say but thine own tragic word, | |
| That virtue, which had worshipped been by thee | |
| As the most solid good, and greatest deity, | |
| By this fatal proof became | |
| An idol only, and a name? | 75 |
| Hold, noble Brutus! and restrain | |
| The bold voice of thy generous disdain: | |
| These mighty gulfs are yet | |
| Too deep for all thy judgment and thy wit. | |
| The time’s set forth already which shall quell | 80 |
| Stiff reason, when it offers to rebel. | |
| Which these great secrets shall unseal, | |
| And new philosophies reveal. | |
| A few years more, so soon hadst thou not died, | |
| Would have confounded human virtue’s pride, | 85 |
| And shew’d thee a God crucified. | |
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