My dearest friend, would I had dy'd 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.
Silent and sad I walk about all day,

As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by

Where their hid treasures lie;
Alas! my treasure's gone! why do I stay?
He was my friend, the truest friend on earth;
A strong and mighty influence join'd our birth;
Nor did we envy the most sounding name

By friendship given of old to fame.
None but his brethren he and sisters knew,

Whom the kind youth preferr'd to me;

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 unweary'd have we spent the nights,
Till the Ledæan stars, so fam'd for love,

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 thin
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;

Or your sad branches thicker join,

And into darkesome shades combine,
Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid!
Henceforth, no learned youths beneath you sing,
Till all the tuneful birds to' your boughs they bring;
No tuneful birds play with their wonted chear,
And call the learned youths to hear;

No whistling winds through the glad branches fly:

But all, with sad solemnity,

Mute and unmoved be, 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. 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,
I should contemn that flourishing honour now;
Condemn it to the fire, and joy to hear

It rage and crackle there.
Instead of bays, crown with sad cypress me;

Cypress, which tombs does beautify:

Not Phæbus 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 't was shortly' in heaven to have,

But low and humble as his grave : So high, that

Vi

there did come,
As to their chiefest seat

Conspicuous and great;
So low, that for me too it made a room.
He scorn'd this busy world below, and all
That we, mistaken mortals! pleasure call;
Was fill'd with innocent gallantry and truth,

Triumphant o'er the sins of youth.
He, like the stars, to which he now is gove,

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:
Nor did more Learning ever crowded lie

In such a short mortality.
Whene'er the skilful youth discours'd or writ,

Still did the notions throng

About his eloquent tongue, 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 heavenly moon did show,

Tempering that mighty sea below. Oh! had he liv'd in Learning's world, what bound

Would have been able to control

His over-powering soul! We'ave lost in him arts that not yet are found.

His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit,
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 book3 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 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,

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 seiz'd on that breath 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 ere chose,

The place now only free from those.
There 'mong the blest thou dost for ever shine,

And, wheresoe'er thou casts'st thy view,

Upon that white and radiant crew, See'st not a soul cloth'd 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 rarefy'd. 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.

IN

THE COMPLAINT.
a deep vision's intellectual scene,
Beneath a bower for sorrow made,

Th' uncomfortable shade
Of the black yew's unlucky green,

Mixt with the mourning willow's careful grey,
Where reverend Cham cuts out his famous way,

The melancholy Cowley lay:
And lo! a Muse appear'd to 's closed sight,
(The Muses oft in lands of vision play)
Body'd, array'd, and seen, by an internal light.
A golden harp with silver strings she bore;
A wondrous hieroglyphick robe she wore,
In which all colours and all tigures were,
That nature or that fancy can create,

That art can never imitate;
And with loose pride it wanton'd in the air.
In such a dress, in such a well-cloth'd dream,
She us’d, of old, near fair Ismenus' stream,
Pindar, her Theban favourite, to meet ;
A crown was on her'head, and wings were on her feet.
She touch'd bins with her harp, and rais'd him from

the ground; The shaken strings melodiously resound.

“ Art thou return'd at last," said she,

“ To this forsaken place and me? “ Thou prodigal ! who didst so loosely waste “Of all thy youthful years the good estate; “ Art thou return'd here, to repent too late, “ And gather husks of learning up at last, “Now the rich harvest-time of life is past,

“ And winter marches on so fast ? “But, when I meant t adopt thee for my son, “ And did as learn'd a portion assign, “As ever any of the mighty Nine

“ Had to their dearest children done ; “ When I resoly'd t'exalt thy' anointed name,

Among the spiritual lords of peaceful fame; “Thou changeling! thou, bewitch'd with noise and

show “ Wouldst into courts and cities from me go ; "Wouldst see the world abroad, and have a share * In all the follies and the tumults there :