The Funerals of the Honourable, my best friend and Kinsman, GEORGE TALBOT Efq;
GOE stop the swift-wing'd moments in their flight
To their yet unknowne coast, goe hinder night
From its approach on day, and force day rise
From the faire East of some bright beauties eyes :
Else vaunt not the proud miracle of verse.
It hath no powre, for mine from his blacke herfe
Redeemes not Talbot, who could as the breath
Of Winter, coffin'd lyes; filent as Death,
Stealing on th' Anch'rit, who even wants an eare
To breath into his soft expiring prayer.
For had thy life beene by thy virtues spun
Out to a length, thou hadst out-liv'd the Sunne
And clof'd the world's great eye: or were not all
Our wonders fiction, from thy funerall
Thou hadst received new life, and liv'd to be
The conqueror o'er Death, inspir'd by me.
But all we poets glory in is vaine
And empty triumph: Art cannot regaine
One poore houre lost, nor reskew a small flye
By a foole's finger destinate to dye.
Live then in thy true life (great foule) for set
At liberty by Death thou owest no debt
T' exacting Nature: live, freed from the sport
Of time and fortune in yond' starry court
A glorious potentate, while we below
But fashion wayes to mitigate our woe.
We follow campes, and to our hopes propose
Th' infulting victor; not remembring those
Dismemberd trunkes who gave him victory
By a loath'd fate: we covetous merchants be
And to our aymes pretend treasure and sway,
Forgetfull of the treasons of the fea,
The shootings of a wounded confcience
We patiently sustaine to ferve our fence
With a short pleasure.; so we empire gaine
And rule the fate of buifneffe, the fad paine
Of action we contemne, and the affright
Which with pale vifions still attends our night.
Our joyes false apparitions, but our feares
Are certain prophecies, and till our eares
Reach that celestiall musique, which thine now
So cheerefully receive, we must allow
No comfort to our griefes: from which to be
Exempted, is in death to follow thee.
Castara. 1640. Lond. Ed. by W. Habington.
On two Children dying of one disease, and buried in one grave.
BROUGHT forth in forrow, and bred up in care,
Two tender Children here entombed are:
One place, one Sire, one Womb their being gave,
They had one mortal Sickness, and one grave,
And though they cannot number many years
In their account; yet with their Parents tears
This comfort mingles; though their dayes were few
They scarcely finne, but never forrow knew :
So that they well might boast, they carry'd hence
What riper ages lose, their innocence,
You pretty losses, that revive the fate
Which in your Mother Death did antedate,
O let my high-fswoln grief distill on you
The saddest drops of a Parentall dew:
You ask no other dower then what my eyes
Lay out on your untimely exequies :
When once I have discharg'd that mournfull skore,
Heav'n hath decreed you ne're shall-cost me more,
Since you release and quit my borrow'd trust,
By taking this inheritance of dust.
To the Memory of BEN JONSON, Laureat.
FATHER of Poets, though thine own great day
Struck from thyself, scorns that a weaker ray
Should twine in lustre with it, yet my flame
Kindled from thine, flies upward towards thy name:
For in the acclamation of the less
There's piety, though from it no access:
And though my ruder thoughts make me of those
Who hide and cover what they should disclose,
Yet where the lustre's such, he makes it feen
Better to some that draws the veil between.
And what can more be hop'd, since that divine
Free filling spirit takes its flight with thine ?
Men may have fury, but no raptures now,
Like Witches charm, yet not know whence, nor how,
And through distemper grown not strong, but fierce,
Instead of writing, only rave in verse;
Which when by thy laws judg'd, 'twill be confest
'Twas not to be inspir'd, but be possest.
Where shall we find a Muse like thine, that can
So well present, and shew man unto man,
That each one finds his twin, and thinks thy art
Extends not to the gestures, but the heart?
Where one so shewing life to life, that we
Think thou taught'st custome, and not custome thee;
Manners were themes, and to thy scenes still flow
In the same stream, and are their comments now;
These times thus living o'er thy models, we
Think them not so much Wit, as Prophecie;
And though we know the character, nay and swear
A Sybil's finger hath been busie there.
Things common thou speak'st proper, which though known
For publike, stamp'd by Thee, grow thence thine own;
Thy thought's so ordered, so express'd, that we
Conclude that thou didst not discourse, but fee:
Language so master'd that thy numerous feet
Laden with genuine words do alwaies meet
Each in his art, nothing unfit doth fall,
Shewing the Poet, like the wife men, all
Thine equall skill thus wresting nothing, made
Thy pen seem not so much to write, as trade.
That life, that Venus of all things, which we
Conceive or shew, proportion'd Decency,
Is not found scatter'd in thee here or there,
But like the soul is wholly every where;
No strange perplexed maze doth pass for plot,
Thou alwaies dost unty, not cut the knot :
Thy labyrinth's doors are open'd by one thread,
Which tyes and runs through all that's done or said,
No Power comes down with learned hat or rod,
Wit onely and Contrivance is thy God.
'Tis eafie to gild gold, there's small skill spent
Where ev'n the first rude mass is ornament;
Thy Muse took harder metals, purg'd and boyl'd,
Labour'd and try'd, heated and beat, and toyl'd,
Sifted the dross, fyl'd roughness, then gave dress,
Vexing rude subjects into comeliness;
Be it thy glory then that we may say,
Thou runest where the foot was hind'red by the way.
Nor dost thou powre out, but difpence thy vein,
Skill'd when to spare, and when to entertain;
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