For the rich help of books he always took,
Though his own searching mind before
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;
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 heaven one way.

With as much zeal, devotion, piety,

He always lived, 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,
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?
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 seized on that breath

Where life, spirit, pleasure always used to dwell.
But happy thou, ta'en from this frantic age,
Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage!
A fitter time for heaven no soul ere chose,
The place now only free from those.

There 'mong the bless'd thou dost for ever shine, And wheresoe'er thou cast'st 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
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

Our dull and earthly poesy,

Where grief and misery can be join'd with verse.

COWLEY.

MUSÆUS*.

A Monody, to the Memory of Mr. Pope.

IN IMITATION OF MILTON'S LYCIDAS.

SORROWING I catch the reed, and call the Muse;
If yet a Muse on Britain's plain abide,

Since rapt Musæus tuned his parting strain :
With him they lived, with him perchance they died.
For who e'er since their virgin charms espied,
Or on the banks of Thames, or met their train
Where Isis sparkles to the sunny ray?
Or have they deign'd to play

Where Camus winds along his broider'd vale,
Feeding each blue bell pale, and daisy pied,
That fling their fragrance round his rushy side?

Mr. Pope died in the year 1744; this poem was then written, and published first in the year 1747.

Yet ah! ye are not dead, Celestial Maids;
Immortal as ye are, ye may not die:

Nor is it meet ye fly these pensive glades,
Ere round his laureate hearse ye heave the sigh.
Stay then a while, oh stay, ye fleeting fair;
Revisit yet, nor hallow'd Hippocrene,

Nor Thespia's grove; till with harmonious teen
Ye soothe his shade, and slowly dittied air.
Such tribute pour'd, again ye may repair
To what loved haunt ye whilom did elect;
Whether Lycæus, or that mountain fair,
Trim Mænalus, with piny verdure deck'd.
But now it boots ye not in these to stray,
Or yet Cyllene's hoary shade to choose,
Or where mild Ladon's welling waters play.
Forego each vain excuse,

[join And haste to Thames's shores; for Thames shall Our sad society, and passing mourn,

The tears fast trickling o'er his silver urn.
And, when the Poet's widow'd grot he laves,
His reed-crown'd locks shall shake, his head
shall bow,

His tide no more in eddies blithe shall rove,
But creep soft by with long drawn murmurs slow.
For oft the mighty master roused his waves
With martial notes, or lull'd with strain of love:
He must not now in brisk meanders flow
Gamesome, and kiss the sadly silent shore,
Without the loan of some poetic woe.

Say first, Sicilian Muse,

For, with thy sisters thou didst weeping stand In silent circle at the solemn scene, [wand, When Death approach'd and waved his ebon Say how each laurel droop'd its withering green?

How, in yon grot, each silver trickling spring
Wander'd the shelly channels all among;
While as the coral roof did softly ring
Responsive to their sweetly doleful song?
Meanwhile all pale the' expiring Poet laid,

And sunk his awful head,

While vocal shadows pleasing dreams prolong; For so, his sickening spirits to release,

They pour'd the balm of visionary peace.

First sent from Cam's fair banks, like palmer old,

Came Tityrus slow, with head all silver'd o'er,
And in his hand an oaken crook he bore,

And thus in antique guise short talk did hold:
'Grete clerk of Fame' is house, whose excellence
Maie wele befitt thilk place of eminence,
Mickle of wele betide thy houres last,

For mich gode wirkè to me don and past.
For syn the days whereas my lyre ben strongen,
And deftly many a mery laie I songen,
Old Time, which alle things don maliciously
Gnawen with rusty tooth continually,
Gnattrid my lines, that they all cancrid ben,
Till at the last thou smoothen 'hem hast again;
Sithence full semely gliden my rimes rude,
As (if fitteth thilk similitude),

Whannè shallow brook yrenneth hobling on,
Ovir rough stones it makith full rough song;
But, them stones removen, this lite rivere
Stealith forth by, making plesaunt murmere:
So my sely rymes, whoso may them note,
Thou makist everichone to ren right sote;

* Tityrus, &c.] i. e. Chaucer, a name frequently given him by Spenser. See Shep. Cal. Ec. 2, 6, 12, and elsewhere.

And in thy verse entunist so fetisely,

That men sayen I make trewe melody,

And speaken every dele to myne honoure.
Mich wele, grete clerk, betide thy parting houre!'

He ceased his homely rhyme;

When Colin Clout*, Eliza's shepherd swain,
The blithest lad that ever piped on plain,
Came with his reed soft warbling on the way,
And thrice he bow'd his head with motion mild,
And thus his gliding numbers 'gan essay.

+Ah! luckless swain, alas! how art thou lorn, Who once like me couldst frame thy pipe to play

Shepherd's devise, and chear the lingering morn: Ne bush, ne breere, but learnt thy roundelay. Ah plight too sore such worth to equal right! Ah worth too high to meet such piteous plight!

"But I nought strive, poor Colin, to compare My Hobbin's or my Thenot's rustic skill To thy deft swains', whose dapper ditties rare Surpass aught else of quaintest shepherd's quill. E'en Roman Tityrus, that peerless wight, Mote yield to thee for dainties of delight.

'Eke when in Fable's flowery paths you stray'd, Masking in cunning feints Truth's splendent face; Ne Sylph, ne Sylphid, but due tendance paid, To shield Belinda's lock from felon base,

Colin Clout,] i. e. Spenser, which name he gives himself throughout his works.

+ The two first stanzas of this speech, as they relate to Pastoral, are written in the measure which Spenser uses in the first eclogue of the Shepherd's Calendar: the rest, where he speaks of fable, are in the stanza of the Faery Queene.