My dearest friend, would I had dy'd for thee! If once my griefs prove tedious too. As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by Alas! my treasure's gone! why do I stay? He was my friend, the truest friend on earth; For much above myself I lov'd them too. Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights, We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine; Wit, Eloquence, and Poetry, Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thin Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade; 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; J No whistling winds through the glad branches fly: Mute and unmoved be, Mute as the grave wherein my friend does lie. To him my Muse made haste with every strain, Hence now, my Muse! thou canst not me delight: 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, Instead of bays, crown with sad cypress me; Large was his soul; as large a soul as e'er High as the place 't was shortly' in heaven to have, So high, that all the Virtues there did come, Conspicuous and great; So low, that for me too it made a room. He scorn'd this busy world below, and all He, like the stars, to which he now is gone, Yet burn not with the same, Had all the light of youth, of the fire none. Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught, Whene'er the skilful youth discours'd or writ, About his eloquent tongue, Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit. So strong a wit did Nature to him frame, Oh! had he liv'd in Learning's world, what bound His over-powering soul! We 'ave lost in him arts that not yet are found. His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit, For the rich help of books he always took, As if wise Nature had made that her book. So many virtues join'd in him, as we 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. 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, See'st not a soul cloth'd with more light than thine. And, if the glorious saints cease not to know '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, And lo! a Muse appear'd to 's closed sight, That art can never imitate; And with loose pride it wanton'd in the air. A crown was on her head, and wings were on her feet. She touch'd bin with her harp, and rais'd him from the ground; The shaken strings melodiously resound. "Art thou return'd at last," said she, "Had to their dearest children done; "Wouldst into courts and cities from me go ; |