Tis true, they quitted him to their poor pow'r;
They humm'd against him, and with face most sour
Call'd him a strong-lin'd man, a macaroon,
And no way fit to speak to clouted shoon.
"As fine words truly as you would desire
"But, verily, but a bad edifier."
Thus did these beetles slight in him that good
They could not see, and much less understood.
But we may say, when we compare the stuff
Both wrought, he was a candle, they the snuff.
Well, Wisdom's of her children justify'd,
Let, therefore, these poor fellows stand aside;
Nor, tho' of learning he deserv'd so highly,
Would I his book should save him; rather slily
I should advise his clergy not to pray,
Tho' of the learnedst sort; methinks that they
Of the same trade are judges not so fit;
There's no such emulation as of wit.
Of such the envy might as much perchance
Wrong him, and more, than th' other's ignorance.
It was his fate, I know't, to be envy'd
As much by clerks as laymen magnify'd:
And why? but,'cause he came late in the day,
And yet his penny earn'd, and had as they.
No more of this, lest some should say that I
Am stray'd to satire, meaning elegy..
No, no; had Donne need to be judg'd or try'd,
A jury I would summon on his side
That had no sides nor factions past the touch
Of all exceptions, freed from passion, such
As not to fear nor flatter e'er were bred;
These would I bring, tho' called from the dead:
Southampton, Hamilton, Pembroke, Dorset's earls,
Huntington, Bedford's countesses, the pearls
Once of each sex. If these suffice not, I
Ten decem tales have of standers-by;
All which for Donne would such a verdict give
As can belong to none that now doth live.
But what do I? a diminution 'tis
To speak of him in verse so short of his,
Whereof he was the master; all, indeed,
Compar'd with him, pip'd on an oaten reed.
O that you had but one, 'mongst all your brothers,
Could write for him as he hath done for others!
Poets I speak to: when I see 't I'll say.
My eyesight betters as my years decay.
Mean-time a quarrel I shall ever have
Against these doughty keepers from the grave,
Who use, it seems, their old authority,
When verses men immortal make they cry;
Which had it been a recipe true try'd,
Probatum esset, Donne had never dy'd.
For me, if e'er I had least spark at all
Of that which they poetic fire do call,
Here I confess it fetched from his hearth,
Which is gone out, now he is gone to earth.
This only a poor flash, a lightning is
Before my Muse's death, as after his.
Farewell, fair Soul! and deign receive from me
This type of that devotion Lowe thee,
From whom, while living, as by voice and pen
I learned more than from a thousand men,
So by thy death am of one doubt releas'd,
And now believe that miracles are ceas'd.
EPITAPH ON DR. DONNE,
BY DR. CORBET, BISHOP OF OXFORD.
He that would write an epitaph for thee,,
And do it well, must first begin to be:
Such as thou wert; for none can truly know
Thy worth, thy life, but he that hath liv'd sot
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 Mecænas, and Augustus too;
He must have such a sickness, such a death,
Or else his vain descriptions come beneath.
Who then shall write an epitaph for thee
He must be dead first; let it alone for me.
THIS decent urn a sad inscription wears
Of Donne's departure from us to the spheres,
And the dumb stone with silence seems to tell
The changes of this life, wherein is well
Exprest a cause to make all joy to cease,
And never let our sorrows more take ease;
For now it is impossible to find
One fraught with virtues to enrich a mind.
But why should Death, with a promiscuous hand,
At one rude stroke impoverish a land?
Thou strict attorney unto stricter Fate,
Didst thou confiscate his life out of hate
To his rare parts? or didst thou throw thy dart
With envious hand at some plebeian heart,
And he with pious virtue stept between
To save that stroke, and so was kill'd unseen
By thee? O t' was his goodness so to do,
Which human kindness never reach'd unto.
Thus the hard laws of death were satisfy'd,
And he left us like orphan-friends, and dy'd.
Now from the pulpit to the people's ears
Whose speech shall send repentant sighs and tears?
Or tell me, if a purer virgin die,
Who shall hereafter write her elegy?
Poets! be silent; let your numbers sleep,
For he is gone that did all fancy keep.
Time hath no soul but his exalted verse,
Which with amazements we may now rehearse. 28
HERE lies Dean Donne! Enough; those words alone
Shew him as fully as if all the stone
His church of Paul's contains were thorough inscrib'd,
Or all the walkers there to speak him brib'd.
None can mistake him, for one such as he,
Donne, Dean, or Man, more none shall ever see.
Not man? no; tho' unto a sun each eye
Were turn'd, the whole earth so to overspy.
A bold brave word; yet such brave spirits as knew
His spirit, will say it is less bold than true,
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