Page images
PDF
EPUB

Struck dumb, they all admir'd the godlike man:

The godlike man,

Alas! too foon retir'd,

As he too late began.

We beg not hell our Orpheus to restore:
Had he been there,

Their fovereign's fear

Had fent him back before.

The power of harmony too well they knew:
He long ere this had tun'd their jarring sphere,
And left no hell below.

III.

The heavenly choir, who heard his notes from high, Let down the scale of music from the sky:

They handed him along,

And all the way he taught, and all the way they fung.
Ye brethren of the lyre, and tuneful voice,
Lament his lot; but at your own rejoice:
Now live fecure, and linger out your days;
The gods are pleas'd alone with Purcell's lays,
Nor know to mend their choice.

IX.

EPITAPH ON THE LADY WHITMORE.

FAIR, kind, and true, a treasure each alone,

A wife, a mistress, and a friend in one, Reft in this tomb, rais'd at thy husband's coft, Here fadly fumming, what he had, and loft.

Come,

Come, virgins, ere in equal bands ye join,
Come first, and offer at her facred shrine;
Pray but for half the virtues of this wife,
Compound for all the reft, with longer life;
And wish your vows, like hers, may be return'd,
So lov'd when living, and when dead fo mourn'd.

X.

EPITAPH ON SIR PALMES FAIRBONE'S TOMB IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY.

Sacred to the immortal memory of Sir PALMES FAIRBONE, Knight, Governor of Tangier; in execution of which command, he was mortally wounded by a shot from the Moors, then befieging the town, in the forty-fixth year of his age, October 24, 1680.

E facred relics, which

YE

your marble keep,

Here, undisturb'd by wars, in quiet fleep:
Discharge the truft, which, when it was below,
Fairbone's undaunted foul did undergo,
And be the town's Palladium from the foe.
Alive and dead thefe walls he will defend:
Great actions great examples must attend.
The Candian fiege his early valour knew,
Where Turkish blood did his young hands imbrue.
From thence returning with deferv'd applause,
Against the Moors his well-flefh'd fword he draws;
The fame the courage, and the fame the cause.
VOL. XIX.
Ο

}

}

His

His youth and age, his life and death, combine,
As in fome great and regular defign,

All of a piece throughout, and all divine.
Still nearer heaven his virtues fhone more bright,
Like rifing flames expanding in their height;
The martyr's glory crown'd the foldier's fight.
More bravely British general never fell,

Nor general's death was e'er reveng'd fo well;
Which his pleas'd eyes beheld before their close,
Follow'd by thousand victims of his foes.

To his lamented lofs for time to come
His pious widow confecrates this tomb.

XI.

UNDER MR. MILTON'S PICTURE, BEFORE HIS

PARADISE LOST.

HREE Poets, in three diftant ages born,

THREE

Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The firft, in loftinefs of thought furpafs'd;
The next, in majefty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, fhe join'd the former two.

XII.

ON THE MONUMENT OF A FAIR MAIDEN LADY, WHO DIED AT BATH, AND IS THERE INTERRED.

B

ELOW this marble monument is laid

All that heaven wants of this celeftial maid. Preferve, O facred tomb, thy truft confign'd; The mould was made on purpofe for the mind:

And

And she would lose, if, at the latter day,
One atom could be mix'd of other clay.
Such were the features of her heavenly face,

Her limbs were form'd with such harmonious grace:
So faultlefs was the frame, as if the whole
Had been an emanation of the soul;
Which her own inward symmetry reveal'd;
And like a picture fhone, in glass anneal'd.
Or like the fun eclips'd, with fhaded light:
Too piercing, elfe, to be sustain'd by fight.
Each thought was visible that roll'd within:
As through a crystal cafe the figur'd hours are feen.
And heaven did this transparent veil provide,
Because she had no guilty thought to hide.
All white, a virgin-faint, fhe fought the skies:
For marriage, though it fullies not, it dies.
High though her wit, yet humble was her mind;
As if she could not, or fhe would not find
How much her worth tranfcended all her kind.
Yet fhe had learn'd fo much of heaven below,
That when arriv'd, she scarce had more to know:
But only to refresh the former hint;

And read her Maker in a fairer print.

So pious, as she had no time to spare

For human thoughts, but was confin'd to prayer.
Yet in fuch charities fhe pafs'd the day,
'Twas wondrous how fhe found an hour to pray.
A foul fo calm, it knew not ebbs or flows,
Which paffion could but curl, not discompose.

O 2

}

A female

A female softness, with a manly mind:
A daughter duteous, and a fifter kind:
In fickness patient, and in death refign'd.

}

XIII.

EPITAPH ON MRS. MARGARET PASTON, OF BURNINGHAM, IN NORFOLK.

S

O fair, fo young, fo innocent, so sweet,

So ripe a judgment, and fo rare a wit,
Require at least an age in one to meet.

In her they met; but long they could not stay,
'Twas gold too fine to mix without allay.
Heaven's image was in her fo well expreft,
Her very fight upbraided all the rest;
Too juftly ravish'd from an age like this,
Now the is gone, the world is of a piece.

XIV.

ON, THE MONUMENT OF THE MARQUIS OF

WINCHESTER.

E, who in impious times undaunted flood,
And midft rebellion durft be juft and good:
Whofe arms afferted, and whose sufferings more
Confirm'd the caufe for which he fought before;
Refts here, rewarded by an heavenly prince;
For what his earthly could not recompence.
Pray, reader, that fuch times no more appear:
Or, if they happen, learn true honour here.

A&

}

« PreviousContinue »