AN EPITAPH WRITTEN BY DOCTOR CORBET, LATE BISHOP OF Oxford, ON HIS FRIEND,
E that would write an epitaph for thee,
And write it well, must first begin to be
Such as thou wert; for none can truly know
Thy life and worth, but he that hath liv'd so.
He must have wit to spare, and to hurl down;
Enough to keep the gallants of the town.
He must have learning plenty; both the laws,
Civil and common, to judge any cause;
Divinity great store above the rest,
Not of the last edition, but the best.
He must have language, travel, all the arts,
Judgment to use, or else he wants thy parts.
He must have friends the highest, able to do,
Such as Mæcenas, and Augustus too.
He must have such a sickness, such a death,
Or else his vain descriptions come beneath.
He that would write an epitaph for thee
Should first be dead; let it alone for me.
TO THE MEMORY OF MY EVER DESIRED
AN ELEGY BY HENRY KING, LATE BISHOP OF CHICHESTER.
O have liv'd eminent, in a degree
Beyond our loftiest thoughts, that is, like thee; Or to have had too much merit is not safe, For such excesses find no epitaph.
At common graves we have poetic eyes,
Can melt themselves in easy elegies;
Each quill can drop his tributary verse,
And pin it, like the hatchments, to the hearse;
But at thine, poem or inscription
(Rich soul of wit and language) we have none.
Indeed a silence does that tomb befit,
Where is no herald left to blazon it.
Widow'd invention justly doth forbear
To come abroad, knowing thou art not there:
Late her great patron, whose prerogative
Maintain'd and cloth'd her so, as none alive
Must now presume to keep her at thy rate,
Though he the Indies for her dower estate.
Or else that awful fire which once did burn
In thy clear brain, now fallen into thy urn,
Lives there to fright rude empirics from thence,
Which might profane thee by their ignorance.
Whoever writes of thee, and in a style
Unworthy such a theme, does but revile
Thy precious dust, and wakes a learned spirit,
Which may revenge his rapes upon thy merit.
For all a low-pitch'd fancy can devise
Will prove at best but hallow'd injuries.
Thou, like the dying swan, didst lately sing
Thy mournful dirge in audience of the king;
When pale looks and faint accents of thy breath
Presented so to life that piece of death,
That it was fear'd and prophesied by all
Thou thither cam'st to preach thy funeral.
Oh! hadst thou in an elegiac knell
Rung out unto the world thine own farewell,
And in thy high victorious numbers beat
The solemn measures of thy grieved retreat,
Thou mightst the poet's service now have miss'd,
As well as then thou didst prevent the priest:
And never to the world beholden be,
So much as for an epitaph for thee.
I do not like the office: nor is't fit
Thou, who didst lend our age such sums of wit,
Shouldst now reborrow from her bankrupt mine
That oar to bury thee which first was thine;
Rather still leave us in thy debt :--and know,
Exalted soul! more glory 'tis to owe
Thy memory, what we can never pay,
Than with embased coin those rites defray.
Commit we then thee to thyself, nor blame
Our drooping loves, that thus to thine own fame
Leave thee executor, since but thine own
No pen could do thee justice, nor bays crown
Thy vast deserts; save that we nothing can
Depute to be thy ashes' guardian.
So jewellers no art or metal trust
To form the diamond, but the diamond's dust.
AN ELEGY ON DOCTOR DONNE.
UR Donne is dead! and we may sighing say, We had that man where Language chose to stay And show her utmost power. I would not praise
That and his great wit, which in our vain days
Make others proud; but as these served to unlock
That cabinet, his mind, where such a stock
Of knowledge was reposed, that I lament
Our just and general cause of discontent.
And I rejoice I am not so severe,
But as I write a line, to weep a tear
For his decease. Such sad extremities
Can make such men as I write elegies.
And wonder not; for when so great a loss
Falls on a nation, and they slight the cross,
God hath raised prophets to awaken them
From their dull lethargy; witness my pen,
Not used to upbraid the world, though now it must
Freely and boldly, for the cause is just.
Dull age! oh, I would spare thee, but thou'rt worse:
Thou art not only dull, but hast a curse
Of black ingratitude: if not, couldst thou
Part with this matchless man, and make no vow
For thee and thine successively to pay
Some sad remembrance to his dying day?
Did his youth scatter poetry, wherein
Lay love's philosophy? Was every sin
Pictured in his sharp satires, made so foul
That some have fear'd Sin's shapes, and kept their soul Safer by reading verse? Did he give days,
Past marble monuments, to those whose praise
He would perpetuate? Did he (I fear
Envy will doubt) these at his twentieth year?
But, more matured; did his rich soul conceive,
And in harmonious holy numbers weave
A crown of sacred sonnets, fit to' adorn
A dying martyr's brow, or to be worn
On that bless'd head of Mary Magdalen,
After she wiped Christ's feet, but not till then?
Did he (fit for such penitents as she
And he to use) leave us a Litany
Which all devout men love, and doubtless shall,
As times grow better, grow more classical ?
Did he write hymns, for piety and wit,
Equal to those great grave Prudentius writ?
Spake he all languages? Knew he all laws?
The grounds and use of physic—but, because
'Twas mercenary, waved it? went to see
That happy place of Christ's nativity?
Did he return and preach him? preach him so,
As, since St. Paul, none ever did? they know-
Those happy souls that heard him know this truth.
Did he confirm thy ag'd, convert thy youth?
Did he these wonders? and is his dear loss
Mourn'd by so few ?-few for so great a cross.
But sure the silent are ambitious all
To be close mourners at his funeral.
If not; in common pity they forbear,
By repetitions, to renew our care:
Or knowing grief conceived and hid, consumes
Man's life insensibly (as poison's fumes
Corrupt the brain), take silence for the way
To' enlarge the soul from these walls, mud and clay, (Materials of this body) to remain
With him in heaven, where no promiscuous pain
|