My best of friends! what needs a chain to tie

One by your merit bound a votary?

Think you I have some plot upon my peace,

I would this bondage change for a release?

Since 'twas my fate your prisoner to be,

Heav'n knows I nothing fear, but liberty.

Yet you do well, that study to prevent,

After so rich a stock of favour spent

On one so worthless, lest my memory

10Should let so dear an obligation die

Without record. This made my precious Friend

Her token, as an antidote, to send,

Against forgetful poisons; That as they

Who Vespers late, and early Mattins say

Upon their beads, so on this linked score

In golden numbers I might reckon o'er

Your virtues and my debt, which does surmount

The trivial laws of popular account:

For that, within this emblematic knot,

20Your beauteous mind, and my own fate, is wrote.

The sparkling constellation which combines

The lock, is your dear self, whose worth outshines

Most of your sex; so solid and so clear

You like a perfect diamond appear;

Casting, from your example, fuller light

Than those dim sparks which glaze the brow of night,

And gladding all your friends, as doth the ray

Of that East-star which wakes the cheerful day.

But the black map of death and discontent

30Behind that adamantine firmament,

That luckless figure, which, like Calvary,

Stands strew'd and copied out in skulls, is I:

Whose life your absence clouds, and makes my time

Move blindfold in the dark ecliptic line.

Then wonder not, if my removed Sun

So low within the western tropic run;

My eyes no day in this horizon see,

Since where You are not, all is night to me.

Lastly, the anchor which enfast'ned lies

40Upon a pair of deaths, sadly applies

That Monument of Rest, which harbour must

Our ship-wrackt fortunes in a road of dust.

So then, how late soe'er my joyless life

Be tired out in this affection's strife:

Though my tempestuous fancy, like the sky,

Travail with storms, and through my wat'ry eye,

Sorrow's high-going waves spring many a leak;

Though sighs blow loud, till my heart's cordage break;

Though Faith, and all my wishes prove untrue,

50Yet Death shall fix and anchor Me with You.

'Tis some poor comfort, that this mortal scope

Will period, though never crown, my Hope.

Not knowing who should my acquittance take,

I know as little what discharge to make.

The favour is so great, that it outgoes

All forms of thankfulness I can propose.

Those grateful levies which my pen would raise,

Are stricken dumb, or buried in amaze.

Therefore, as once in Athens there was shown

An Altar built unto the God Unknown,

My ignorant devotions must by guess

10This blind return of gratitude address,

Till you vouchsafe to show me where and how

I may to this revealed Goddess bow.

My Dearest, To let you or the world know

What debt of service I do truly owe

To your unpattern'd self, were to require

A language only form'd in the desire

Since nothing in my desp'rate fortune found,

Can payment make, nor yet the sum compound;

You must lose all, or else of force accept

The body of a bankrupt for your debt.

Then, Love, your bond to execution sue,

20And take myself, as forfeited to you.

Were I to leave no more than a good friend,

Or but to hear the summons to my end,

(Which I have long'd for) I could then with ease

Attire my grief in words, and so appease

That passion in my bosom, which outgrows

The language of strict verse or largest prose.

But here I am quite lost; writing to you,

All that I pen or think is forc'd and new.

My faculties run cross, and prove as weak

10T' indite this melancholy task, as speak:

Indeed all words are vain; well might I spare

This rend'ring of my tortur'd thoughts in air,

Or sighing paper. My infectious grief

Strikes inward, and affords me no relief,

But still a deeper wound, to lose a sight

More lov'd than health, and dearer than the light.

But all of us were not at the same time

Brought forth, nor are we billeted in one clime.

Nature hath pitch'd mankind at several rates,

20Making our places diverse as our fates.

Unto that universal law I bow,

Though with unwilling knee, and do allow

Her cruel justice, which dispos'd us so

That we must counter to our wishes go.

'Twas part of man's first curse, which order'd well,

We should not alway with our likings dwell.

'Tis only the Triumphant Church where we

Shall in unsever'd neighbourhood agree.

Go then, best soul, and, where You must appear,

30Restore the day to that dull hemisphere.

Ne'er may the hapless night You leave behind

Darken the comforts of Your purer mind.

May all the blessings wishes can invent

Enrich your days, and crown them with content.

And though You travel down into the West,

May Your life's Sun stand fixed in the East,

Far from the weeping set; nor may my ear

Take in that killing whisper, You once were.

Thus kiss I Your fair hands, taking my leave,

40As prisoners at the bar their doom receive.

All joys go with You: let sweet peace attend

You on the way, and wait Your journey's end.

But let Your discontents and sourer fate

Remain with me, borne off in my retrait.

Might all your crosses, in that sheet of lead

Which folds my heavy heart, lie buried:

'Tis the last service I would do You, and the best

My wishes ever meant, or tongue profest.

Once more I take my leave. And once for all,

50Our parting shows so like a funeral,

It strikes my soul, which hath most right to be

Chief Mourner at this sad solemnity.

And think not, Dearest, 'cause this parting knell

Is rung in verses, that at Your farewell

I only mourn in poetry and ink:

No, my pen's melancholy plummets sink

So low, they dive where th' hid affections sit,

Blotting that paper where my mirth was writ.

Believe 't, that sorrow truest is, which lies

60Deep in the breast, not floating in the eyes:

And he with saddest circumstance doth part,

Who seals his farewell with a bleeding heart.

Fair one, why cannot you an old man love?

He may as useful, and more constant prove.

Experience shows you that maturer years

Are a security against those fears

Love is our Reason's Paradox, which still

Against the judgement doth maintain the will:

And governs by such arbitrary laws,

It only makes the act our liking's cause:

We have no brave revenge, but to forgo

Our full desires, and starve the tyrant so.

They whom the rising blood tempts not to taste,

Preserve a stock of love can never waste;

When easy people who their wish enjoy,

10Like prodigals at once their wealth destroy.

Adam till now had stay'd in Paradise

Had his desires been bounded by his eyes.

Resolve me now what spirit hath delight,

If by full feed you kill the appetite?

That stomach healthi'st is, that ne'er was cloy'd,

Why not that Love the best then, ne'er enjoy'd?

To close my argument then. I dare say

110(And without Paradox) as well we may

Enjoy our Love and yet preserve Desire,

As warm our hands by putting out the fire.

We lov'd as friends now twenty years and more:

Is't time or reason, think you, to give o'er?

When, though two prenti'ships set Jacob free,

I have not held my Rachel dear at three.

Yet will I not your levity accuse;

Continuance sometimes is the worse abuse.

In judgement I might rather hold it strange,

If, like the fleeting world, you did not change:

Be it your wisdom therefore to retract,

10When perseverance oft is folly's act.

In pity I can think, that what you do

Hath Justice in't, and some Religion too;

For of all virtues Moral or Divine,

We know, but Love, none must in Heaven shine:

Well did you the presumption then foresee

Of counterfeiting immortality:

Since had you kept our loves too long alive,

We might invade Heaven's prerogative;

Or in our progress, like the Jews, comprise

20The Legend of an earthly Paradise.

Live happy, and more prosperous in the next.

You have discharg'd your old friend by the text.

Farewell, fair Shadow of a female faith,

And let this be our friendship's Epitaph:

Affection shares the frailty of our fate,

When (like ourselves) 'tis old and out of date:

'Tis just all human loves their period have,

When friends are frail and dropping to the grave.

Dear Nan, I would not have thy counsel lost,

Though I last night had twice so much been crost;

Well is a passion to the market brought,

When such a treasure of advice is bought

With so much dross. And couldst thou me assure,

Each vice of mine should meet with such a cure,

I would sin oft, and on my guilty brow

Wear every misperfection that I owe,

Open and visible; I should not hide

10But bring my faults abroad: to hear thee chide

In such a note, and with a quill so sage,

It passion tunes, and calms a tempest's rage.

Well, I am charm'd, and promise to redress

What, without shrift, my follies do confess

Against myself: wherefore let me entreat,

When I fly out in that distemper'd heat

Which frets me into fasts, thou wilt reprove

That froward spleen in poetry and love:

So though I lose my reason in such fits

20Thou'lt rhyme me back again into my wits.

I envy not thy mortal triumphs, Death

(Thou enemy to Virtue, as to breath),

Nor do I wonder much, nor yet complain

The weekly numbers by thy arrow slain.

The whole world is thy factory, and we,

Like traffic, driven and retail'd by Thee:

And where the springs of life fill up so fast,

Some of the waters needs must run to waste.

It is confess'd, yet must our griefs dispute

10That which thine own conclusion doth refute,

Ere we begin. Hearken! for if thy ear

Be to thy throat proportion'd, thou canst hear.

Is there no order in the work of Fate?

Nor rule, but blindly to anticipate

Our growing seasons? or think'st thou 'tis just,

To sprinkle our fresh blossoms with thy dust,

Till by abortive funerals, thou bring

That to an Autumn, Nature meant a Spring?

Is't not enough for thee, that wither'd age

20Lies the unpitied subject of thy rage;

But like an ugly amorist, thy crest

Must be with spoils of Youth and Beauty drest?

In other camps, those which sat down to-day

March first to-morrow, and they longest stay,

Who last came to the service: but in thine,

Only confusion stands for discipline.

We fall in such promiscuous heaps, none can

Put any diff'rence 'twixt thy rear or van;

Since oft the youngest lead thy files. For this,

30The grieved world here thy accuser is,

And I a plaintiff, 'mongst those many ones,

Who wet this Lady's urn with zealous moans;

As if her ashes, quick'ning into years,

Might be again embodied by our tears.

But all in vain; the moisture we bestow

Shall make as soon her curled marble grow,

As render heat or motion to that blood,

Which through her veins branch't like an azure flood;

Whose now still current in the grave is lost,

40Lock'd up, and fetter'd by eternal frost.

Desist from hence, doting Astrology!

To search for hidden wonders in the sky;

Or from the concourse of malignant stars,

Foretell diseases, gen'ral as our wars:

What barren droughts, forerunners of lean dearth,

Threaten to starve the plenty of the earth:

What horrid forms of darkness must affright

The sickly world, hast'ning to that long night

Where it must end. If there no portents are,

50No black eclipses for the Kalendar,

Our times sad annals will rememb'red be

I' th' loss of bright Northumberland and Thee:

Two stars of Court, who in one fatal year

By most untimely set drop'd from their sphere.

For all the shipwracks, and the liquid graves

Lost men have gain'd within the furrow'd waves,

The Sea hath fin'd, and for our wrongs paid use,

When its wrought foam a Venus did produce.

But what repair wilt thou, unhappy Thames,

Afford our loss? thy dull unactive streams

Can no new beauty raise, nor yet restore

Her who by thee was ravish'd from our shore:

Whose death hath stain'd the glory of thy flood,

10And mix'd the guilty channel with her blood.

O Neptune! was thy favour only writ

In that loose element where thou dost sit?

That, after all this time, thou shouldst repent

Thy fairest blessing to the continent?

Say, what could urge this Fate? is Thetis dead,

Or Amphitrite from thy wet arms fled?

Wast thou so poor in Nymphs, that thy moist love

Must be maintain'd with pensions from above?

If none of these, but that, whilst thou didst sleep

20Upon thy sandy pillow in the deep,

This mischief stole upon us; may our grief

Waken thy just revenge on that sly thief,

Who, in thy fluid empire, without leave,

And unsuspected, durst her life bereave.

Henceforth, invert thy order, and provide

In gentlest floods a pilot for our guide.

Let rugged seas be lov'd, but the brook's smile

Shunn'd like the courtship of a crocodile;

And where the current doth most smoothly pass,

30Think for her sake, that stream Death's looking-glass,

To show us our destruction is most near,

When pleasure hath begot least sense of fear.

Else break thy forked sceptre 'gainst some rock,

If thou endure a flatt'ring calm to mock

Thy far-fam'd pow'r, and violate that law

Which keeps the angry Ocean in awe.

Thy trident will grow useless, which doth still

Wild tempests, if thou let tame rivers kill.

Meantime, we owe thee nothing. Our first debt

40Lies cancell'd in thy wat'ry cabinet.

We have for Her thou sent'st us from the main,

Return'd a Venus back to thee again.

Whether thy father's, or disease's rage,

More mortal prov'd to thy unhappy age,

Our sorrow needs not question; since the first

Is known for length and sharpness much the worst.

Thy fever yet was kind; which the ninth day

For thy misfortunes made an easy way.

When th' other barbarous and hectic fit,

In nineteen winters did not intermit.

I therefore vainly now not ask thee why

10Thou didst so soon in thy youth's mid-way die:

But in my sense the greater wonder make,

Thy long oppressed heart no sooner brake.

Of force must the neglected blossom fall,

When the tough root becomes unnatural,

And to his branches doth that sap deny,

Which them with life and verdure should supply.

For parents' shame, let it forgotten be,

And may the sad example die with thee.

It is not now thy grieved friend's intent

20To render thee dull Pity's argument.

Thou hast a bolder title unto fame,

And at Edge Hill thou didst make good the claim;

When, in thy Royal Master's cause and war,

Thy ventur'd life brought off a noble scar.

Nor did thy faithful services desist,

Till death untimely strook thee from the list.

Though in that prouder vault, then, which doth tomb

Thy ancestors, thy body find not room,

Thine own deserts have purchas'd thee a place,

30Which more renowned is than all thy race;

For in this earth thou dost ennobled lie

With marks of valour and of loyalty.

I see that wreath, which doth the wearer arm

'Gainst the quick strokes of thunder, is no charm

To keep off Death's pale dart. For, Jonson, then

Thou hadst been number'd still with living men.

Time's scythe had fear'd thy laurel to invade,

Nor thee this subject of our sorrow made.

Amongst those many votaries who come

To offer up their garlands at thy tomb;

Whilst some more lofty pens, in their bright verse

10(Like glorious tapers flaming on thy hearse),

Shall light the dull and thankless world to see,

How great a maim it suffers, wanting thee;

What ends soever others' quills invite,

I can protest, it was no itch to write,

Nor any vain ambition to be read,

20But merely love and justice to the dead,

Which rais'd my fameless Muse; and caus'd her bring

These drops, as tribute thrown into that spring,

To whose most rich and fruitful bead we owe

The purest streams of language which can flow.

For 'tis but truth, thou taught'st the ruder age

To speak by grammar, and reform'dst the stage:

Thy comic sock induc'd such purged sense,

A Lucrece might have heard without offence.

Amongst those soaring wits that did dilate

30Our English, and advance it to the rate

And value it now holds, thyself was one

Help'd lift it up to such proportion;

That thus refin'd and rob'd, it shall not spare

With the full Greek or Latin to compare.

For what tongue ever durst, but ours, translate

Great Tully's eloquence, or Homer's state?

Both which in their unblemish'd lustre shine,

From Chapman's pen, and from thy Catiline.

All I would ask for thee, in recompense

40Of thy successful toil and time's expense,

Is only this poor boon; that those who can

Perhaps read French, or talk Italian,

Or do the lofty Spaniard affect,

To show their skill in foreign dialect,

Prove not themselves so unnaturally wise,

They therefore should their mother-tongue despise

(As if her poets, both for style and wit,

Not equall'd, or not pass'd, their best that writ),

Until by studying Jonson they have known

50The height and strength and plenty of their own.

Thus in what low earth or neglected room

Soe'er thou sleep'st, thy book shall be thy tomb.

Thou wilt go down a happy corse, bestrew'd

With thine own flowers; and feel thyself renew'd,

Keep station, Nature, and rest, Heaven, sure

On thy supporters' shoulders, lest, past cure,

Thou dash'd in ruin fall, by a grief's weight

Will make thy basis shrink, and lay thy height

Low as the centre. Hark! and feel it read

Through the astonish'd Kingdom, Henry's dead.

It is enough; who seeks to aggravate

One strain beyond this, prove[s] more sharp his fate

Than sad our doom. The world dares not survive

10To parallel this woe's superlative.

O killing Rhetoric of Death! two words

Breathe stronger terrors than plague, fire, or swords

Ere conquer'd. This were epitaph and verse,

Worthy to be prefix'd in Nature's hearse,

Or Earth's sad dissolution; whose fall

Will be less grievous, though more general:

For all the woe ruin e'er buried

Sounds in these fatal accents, Henry's dead.

Cease then, unable Poetry; thy phrase

20Is weak and dull to strike us with amaze

Worthy thy vaster subject. Let none dare

To copy this sad hap, but with despair

Hanging at his quill's point. For not a stream

Of ink can write, much less improve, this theme.

Invention highest wrought by grief or wit

Must sink with him, and on his tombstone split;

Who, like the dying Sun, tells us the light

And glory of our Day set in his Night.

Death and horror wed

To vent their teeming mischief: Henry's dead.

Through the astonisht world, Henry is dead.

I will not weep, for 'twere as great a sin

To shed a tear for thee, as to have bin

An actor in thy death. Thy life and age

Was but a various scene on fortune's stage,

With whom thou tugg'st and strov'st ev'n out of breath

In thy long toil: ne'er master'd till thy death;

And then, despite of trains and cruel wit,

Thou didst at once subdue malice and it.

I dare not then so blast thy memory

10As say I do lament or pity thee.

Were I to choose a subject to bestow

My pity on, he should be one as low

In spirit as desert;—that durst not die,

But rather were content by slavery

To purchase life: or I would pity those,

Thy most industrious and friendly foes;

Who, when they thought to make thee scandal's story,

Lent thee a swifter flight to Heav'n and glory;—

That thought, by cutting off some wither'd days

20(Which thou couldst spare them), to eclipse thy praise;

Yet gave it brighter foil, made thy ag'd fame

Appear more white and fair, than foul their shame:

And did promote an execution

Which (but for them) Nature and Age had done.

Such worthless things as these were only born

To live on Pity's alms (too mean for scorn).

Thou diedst an envious wonder, whose high fate

The world must still admire, scarce imitate.

Sad relic of a blessed soul! whose trust

We sealed up in this religious dust:

O do not thy low exequies suspect,

As the cheap arguments of our neglect.

'Twas a commanded duty, that thy grave

As little pride as thou thyself should have.

Therefore thy covering is an humble stone,

And but a word for thy inscription.

When those that in the same earth neighbour thee,

10Have each his chronicle and pedigree:

They have their waving pennons and their flags

(Of matches and alliance formal brags),

When thou (although from ancestors thou came,

Old as the Heptarchy, great as thy name,)

Sleep'st there inshrin'd in thy admired parts,

And hast no heraldry but thy deserts.

Yet let not them their prouder marbles boast,

For they rest with less honour, though more cost.

Go, search the world, and with your mattocks wound

20The groaning bosom of the patient ground:

Dig from the hidden veins of her dark womb

All that is rare and precious for a tomb;

Yet when much treasure, and more time, is spent,

You must grant his the nobler monument,

Whose Faith stands o'er him for a hearse, and hath

The Resurrection for his epitaph.

To have lived eminent, in a degree

Beyond our loftiest flights, that is, like thee;

Or t' 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, with the hatchments, to the hearse:

But at thine, poem or inscription

10(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 here,

Thou, like the dying swan, didst lately sing

30Thy 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.

O! hadst thou in an elegiac knell

Rung out unto the world thine own farewell;

And in thy high victorious numbers beat

The solemn measure of thy griev'd retreat,

Thou might'st the poet's service now have miss'd,

40As 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 ore to bury thee, which once was thine.

Rather still leave us in thy debt; and know

(Exalted soul!) more glory 'tis to owe

Unto thy hearse what we can never pay,

50Than with embased coin those rites defray.

Commit we then thee to thyself: nor blame

Our drooping loves, which thus to thine own fame

So jewellers no art or metal trust

To form the diamond, but the diamond's dust.

Like a cold fatal sweat which ushers death,

My thoughts hang on me, and my lab'ring breath

Stopp'd up with sighs, my fancy, big with woes,

Feels two twinn'd mountains struggle in her throes,—

Of boundless sorrow one,—t' other of sin;—

For less let no one rate it, to begin

Where honour ends.—In great Gustavus' flame,

That style burnt out, and wasted to a name,

Does barely live with us. As when the stuff

10That fed it, fails, the taper turns to snuff,

With this poor snuff, this airy shadow, we

Of Fame and Honour must contented be;

Since from the vain grasp of our wishes fled

Their glorious substance is, now He is dead.

Speak it again, and louder, louder yet;

Else, whilst we hear the sound, we shall forget

What it delivers. Let hoarse rumour cry,

Till she so many echoes multiply,

Those may like num'rous witnesses confute

20Our unbelieving souls, that would dispute

O could not all thy purchas'd victories

Like to thy fame thy flesh immortalize?

Were not thy virtue nor thy valour charms

To guard thy body from those outward harms

Which could not reach thy soul? could not thy spirit

Lend somewhat which thy frailty might inherit

From thy diviner part, that Death, nor Hate,

Nor Envy's bullets e'er could penetrate?

Could not thy early trophies in stern fight

40Torn from the Dane, the Pole, the Moscovite?

Which were thy triumph's seeds, as pledges sown,

That when thy honour's harvest was ripe grown,

With full-summ'd wing thou falcon-like wouldst fly,

And cuff the Eagle in the German sky:

Forcing his iron beak and feathers feel

They were not proof 'gainst thy victorious steel.

Could not all these protect thee? or prevail

To fright that coward Death, who oft grew pale

To look thee and thy battles in the face?

50Alas! they could not: Destiny gives place

To none; nor is it seen that princes' lives

Can saved be by their prerogatives.

No more was thine; who, clos'd in thy cold lead,

Dost from thyself a mournful lecture read

Of man's short-dated glory: learn, you kings,

You are, like him, but penetrable things;

Though you from demi-gods derive your birth

You are at best but honourable earth:

And howe'er sifted from that coarser bran,

60Which does compound and knead the common man,

Nothing's immortal, or from earth refin'd

About you, but your office and your mind.

Here then break your false glasses, which present

You greater than your Maker ever meant:

Make truth your mirror now, since you find all

That flatter you, confuted by his fall.

Yet, since it was decreed, thy life's bright Sun

Must be eclips'd ere thy full course was run,

Be proud thou didst, in thy black obsequies,

70With greater glory set, than others rise.

Besides, the Roman thought he had done much,

Did he the bank of Rhenus only touch.

But though his march was bounded by the Rhine,

110Not Oder nor the Danube thee confine;

And, but thy frailty did thy fame prevent,

Thou hadst thy conquests stretch'd to such extent,

Thou might'st Vienna reach, and after span

From Mulda to the Baltic Ocean.

But death hath spann'd thee: nor must we divine

What heir thou leav'st to finish thy design,

Or who shall thee succeed, as champion

For liberty and for religion.

Thy task is done; as in a watch, the spring,

120Wound to the height, relaxes with the string:

So thy steel nerves of conquest, from their steep

Ascent declin'd, lie slack'd in thy last sleep.

Rest then, triumphant soul! for ever rest!

And, like the Phoenix in her spicy nest,

Embalm'd with thine own merit, upward fly,

Born in a cloud of perfume to the sky.

Whilst as in deathless urns, each noble mind

Treasures thy ashes which are left behind.

And if perhaps no Cassiopeian spark

130(Which in the North did thy first rising mark)

Shine o'er thy hearse; the breath of our just praise

Shall to the firmament thy virtues raise;

Then fix, and kindle them into a star,

Whose influence may crown thy glorious war.

——O Fam ingens, ingentior armis,

Rex Gustave, quibus Coelo te laudibus aequem?

Virgil. Aeneid. lib. 2. [11?]

Sir, I must ever own myself to be

Possess'd with human curiosity

Of seeing all that might the sense invite

By those two baits of profit and delight:

And since I had the wit to understand

The terms of native or of foreign land;

I have had strong and oft desires to tread

Some of those voyages which I have read.

Yet still so fruitless have my wishes prov'd,

10That from my Country's smoke I never mov'd:

Nor ever had the fortune (though design'd)

To satisfy the wand'rings of my mind.

Therefore at last I did with some content,

Beguile myself in time, which others spent;

Whose art to provinces small lines allots,

And represents large kingdoms but in spots.

Thus by Ortelius and Mercator's aid

Through most of the discover'd world I stray'd.

I could with ease double the Southern Cape,

20And in my passage Afric's wonders take:

And here all wrapp'd in pity and amaze

I stand, whilst I upon the Sultan gaze;

To think how he with pride and rapine fir'd

So vast a territory hath acquir'd;

And by what daring steps he did become

The Asian fear, and scourge of Christendom:

How he achiev'd, and kept, and by what arts

He did concentre those divided parts;

And how he holds that monstrous bulk in awe,

50By settled rules of tyranny, not Law:

So rivers large and rapid streams began,

Swelling from drops into an Ocean.

Sure who e'er shall the just extraction bring

Of this gigantic power from the spring;

Must there confess a higher Ordinance

Did it for terror to the earth advance.

For mark how 'mongst a lawless straggling crew,

Made up of Arab, Saracen, and Jew,

The world's disturber, faithless Mahomet

60Did by impostures an opinion get:

O'er whom he first usurps as Prince, and than

As prophet does obtrude his Alcoran.

Next, how fierce Ottoman his claim made good

From that unblest religion, by blood;

Whilst he the Eastern kingdoms did deface,

To make their ruin his proud Empire's base.

Then like a comet blazing in the skies,

How death-portending Amurath did rise,

This, and much more than this, I gladly read,

Where my relators it had storyed;

Besides that people's manners and their rites,

80Their warlike discipline and order'd fights;

Their desp'rate valour, hard'ned by the sense

Of unavoided Fate and Providence:

Their habit, and their houses, who confer

Less cost on them than on their sepulchre:

Their frequent washings, and the several bath

Each Meschit to itself annexed hath:

What honour they unto the Mufty give,

What to the Sovereign under whom they live:

What quarter Christians have; how just and free

90To inoffensive travellers they be:

Though I confess, like stomachs fed with news,

I took them in for wonder, not for use,

Till your experienc'd and authentic pen

Taught me to know the places and the men;

And made all those suspected truths become

Undoubted now, and clear as axiom.

Sir, for this work more than my thanks is due;

I am at once inform'd and cur'd by you.

So that, were I assur'd I should live o'er

100My periods of time run out before;

Ne'er needed my erratic wish transport

Me from my native lists to that resort,

Where many at outlandish marts unlade

Ingenuous manners, and do only trade

For vices and the language. By your eyes

I here have made my full discoveries;

And all your countries so exactly seen,

As in the voyage I had sharer been.

By this you make me so; and the whole land

110Your debtor: which can only understand

How much she owes you, when her sons shall try

The solid depths of your rare history,

I know your modesty shuns vulgar praise,

140And I have none to bring; but only raise

This monument of Honour and of Love,

Which your long known deserts so far improve,

They leave me doubtful in what style to end,

Whether more your admirer or your friend.

It is, Sir, a confess'd intrusion here

That I before your labours do appear,

Which no loud herald need, that may proclaim

Or seek acceptance, but the Author's fame.

Nor let it be imagin'd that I look

10Only with custom's eye upon your book;

Or in this service that 'twas my intent

T' exclude your person from your argument:

I shall profess, much of the love I owe,

Doth from the root of our extraction grow;

To which though I can little contribute,

Yet with a natural joy I must impute

To our tribe's honour, what by you is done

Worthy the title of a Prelate's son.

And scarcely have two brothers farther borne

20A father's name, or with more value worn

Their own, than two of you; whose pens and feet

Have made the distant points of Heav'n to meet;

He by exact discoveries of the West,

Yourself by painful travels in the East

Some more like you might pow'rfully confute

Th' opposers of Priests' marriage by the fruit.

And (since 'tis known for all their straight vow'd life,

They like the sex in any style but wife)

Cause them to change their cloister for that state

30Which keeps men chaste by vows legitimate:

Nor shame to father their relations,

Or under nephews' names disguise their sons.

This child of yours, born without spurious blot,

And fairly midwiv'd as it was begot,

Doth so much of the parent's goodness wear,

You may be proud to own it for your heir.

Whose choice acquits you from the common sin

Of such, who finish worse than they begin:

You mend upon yourself, and your last strain

40Does of your first the start in judgement gain;

Since what in curious travel was begun,

You here conclude in a devotion.

Where in delightful raptures we descry

As in a map, Sion's chorography

Laid out in so direct and smooth a line,

Men need not go about through Palestine:

Who seek Christ here will the straight road prefer,

As nearer much than by the Sepulchre.

I must confess, I have long wish'd to see

The Psalms reduc'd to this conformity:

Grieving the songs of Sion should be sung

In phrase not diff'ring from a barbarous tongue.

As if, by custom warranted, we may

Sing that to God we would be loath to say.

Far be it from my purpose to upbraid

Their honest meaning, who first offer made

That book in metre to compile, which you

80Have mended in the form, and built anew:

Yet in this jealous age some such there be,

So without cause afraid of novelty,

They would not (were it in their pow'r to choose)

90An old ill practice for a better lose.

Men who a rustic plainness so affect,

They think God served best by their neglect.

Holding the cause would be profan'd by it,

Were they at charge of learning or of wit.

And therefore bluntly (what comes next) they bring

Coarse and unstudied stuffs for offering;

Which like th' old Tabernacle's cov'ring are,

Made up of badgers' skins, and of goat's hair.

But these are paradoxes they must use

100Their sloth and bolder ignorance t'excuse.

Who would not laugh at one will naked go,

'Cause in old hangings truth is pictur'd so?

Though plainness be reputed honour's note,

They mantles use to beautify the coat;

So that a curious (unaffected) dress

Adds much unto the body's comeliness:

And wheresoe'er the subject's best, the sense

Is better'd by the speaker's eloquence.

But, Sir, to you I shall no trophy raise

110From other men's detraction or dispraise:

That jewel never had inherent worth,

Which ask'd such foils as these to set it forth.

If any quarrel your attempt or style,

Forgive them; their own folly they revile.

Since, 'gainst themselves, their factious envy shall

Allow this work of yours canonical.

Nor may you fear the Poet's common lot,

Read, and commended, and then quite forgot:

The brazen mines and marble rocks shall waste,

120When your foundation will unshaken last.

'Tis Fame's best pay, that you your labours see

By their immortal subject crowned be.

For ne'er was writer in oblivion hid

Who firm'd his name on such a Pyramid.

Woe to the worldly men, whose covetous

Ambition labours to join house to house,

Lay field to field, till their enclosures edge

The plain, girdling a country with one hedge:

That leave no place unbought, no piece of earth

Which they will not engross, making a dearth

Of all inhabitants, until they stand

Unneighbour'd, as unblest, within their land.

This sin cries in God's ear, who hath decreed

10The ground they sow shall not return the seed.

They that unpeopled countries to create

Themselves sole Lords,—made many desolate

To build up their own house,—shall find at last

Ruin and fearful desolation cast

Upon themselves. Their mansion shall become

A desert, and their palace prove a tomb.

Their vines shall barren be, their land yield tares;

Their house shall have no dwellers, they no heirs.

Woe unto those, that with the morning Sun

20Rise to drink wine, and sit till he have run

His weary course; not ceasing until night

Have quench'd their understanding with the light:

Whose raging thirst, like fire, will not be tam'd,

The more they pour, the more they are inflam'd.

Woe unto them that only mighty are

To wage with wine; in which unhappy war

They who the glory of the day have won,

Must yield them foil'd and vanquish'd by the tun.

Men that live thus, as if they liv'd in jest,

30Fooling their time with music and a feast;

That did exile all sounds from their soft ear

But of the harp, must this sad discord hear

Compos'd in threats. The feet which measures tread

Shall in captivity be fettered:

Famine shall scourge them for their vast excess;

And Hell revenge their monstrous drunkenness;

Which hath enlarg'd itself to swallow such,

Whose throats ne'er knew enough, though still too much.

Woe unto those that countenance a sin,

40Siding with vice, that it may credit win

By their unhallow'd vote: that do benight

The truth with error, putting dark for light,

Woe unto those that, drunk with self-conceit,

Value their own designs at such a rate

Which human wisdom cannot reach; that sit

Enthron'd, as sole monopolists of wit;

That outlook reason, and suppose the eye

Of Nature blind to their discovery,

Whilst they a title make to understand

Whatever secret's bosom'd in the land.

But God shall imp their pride, and let them see

70They are but fools in a sublime degree:

He shall bring down and humble those proud eyes,

In which false glasses only they look'd wise;

That all the world may laugh, and learn by it,

There is no folly to pretended wit.

Woe unto those that draw iniquity

With cords, and by a vain security

Lengthen the sinful trace, till their own chain

Of many links, form'd by laborious pain,

Do pull them into Hell; that, as with lines

80And cart-ropes, drag on their unwilling crimes:

Who, rather than they will commit no sin,

Tempt all occasions to let it in.

As if there were no God, who must exact

The strict account for every vicious fact;

Nor judgement after death. If any be,

Let him make speed (say they), that we may see.

Unhappy men, that challenge and defy

The coming of that dreadful Majesty!

Better by much for you, he did reverse

His purposed sentence on the Universe;

Or that the creeping minutes might adjourn

Those flames in which you, with the earth, must burn;

That time's revolting hand could lag the year,

And so put back his day which is too near.

Behold his signs advanc'd like colours fly,

100To tell the world that his approach is nigh;

And in a furious march, he's coming on

Swift as the raging inundation,

To scour the sinful world; 'gainst which is bent

Artillery that never can be spent:

Bows strung with vengeance, and flame-feather'd darts

Headed with death, to wound transgressing hearts;

His chariot wheels wrapp'd in the whirlwind's gyre,

His horses hoov'd with flint, and shod with fire:

In which amaze, where'er they fix their eye,

110Or on the melting earth, or up on high,

To seek Heaven's shrunk lights, nothing shall appear,

But night and horror in their hemisphere:

Nor shall th' affrighted sense more objects know

Than dark'ned skies above, and Hell below.

A prison is in all things like a grave,

Where we no better privileges have

Than dead men, nor so good. The soul once fled

Lives freer now, than when she was cloistered

In walls of flesh; and though she organs want

To act her swift designs, yet all will grant

Her faculties more clear, now separate,

Than if the same conjunction, which of late

Did marry her to earth, had stood in force,

10Uncapable of death, or of divorce:

But an imprison'd mind, though living, dies,

And at one time feels two captivities;

Life is a crooked labyrinth, and we

Are daily lost in that obliquity.

'Tis a perplexed circle, in whose round

Nothing but sorrows and new sins abound.

How is the faint impression of each good

Drown'd in the vicious channel of our blood?

Whose ebbs and tides by their vicissitude

Both our great Maker and ourselves delude.

O wherefore is the most discerning eye

10Unapt to make its own discovery?

Why is the clearest and best judging mind

In her own ills' prevention dark and blind?

Dull to advise, to act precipitate,

We scarce think what to do, but when too late.

Or if we think, that fluid thought, like seed,

Rots there to propagate some fouler deed.

Still we repent and sin, sin and repent;

We thaw and freeze, we harden and relent.

Sick soul! what cure shall I for thee devise,

Whose leprous state corrupts all remedies?

What medicine or what cordial can be got

For thee, who poison'st thy best antidote?

Repentance is thy bane, since thou by it

Only reviv'st the fault thou didst commit.

Nor griev'st thou for the past, but art in pain,

30For fear thou mayst not act it o'er again.

So that thy tears, like water spilt on lime,

Serve not to quench, but to advance the crime.

My blessed Saviour! unto thee I fly

For help against this homebred tyranny.

Thou canst true sorrows in my soul imprint,

And draw contrition from a breast of flint.

Thou canst reverse this labyrinth of sin,

My wild affects and actions wander in.

O guide my faith! and, by thy grace's clew,

40Teach me to hunt that kingdom at the view

Where true joys reign, which like their day shall last;

Those never clouded, nor that overcast.

Perhaps 'twas but conceit. Erroneous sense!

Thou art thine own distemper and offence.

Imagine then, that sick unwholesome steam

Was thy corruption breath'd into a dream.

Nor is it strange, when we in charnels dwell,

That all our thoughts of earth and frailty smell.

Man is a Candle, whose unhappy light

Burns in the day, and smothers in the night.

10And as you see the dying taper waste,

By such degrees does he to darkness haste.

Here is the diff'rence: When our bodies' lamps

Blinded by age, or chok'd with mortal damps,

Now faint, and dim, and sickly 'gin to wink,

And in their hollow sockets lowly sink;

When all our vital fires ceasing to burn,

Leave nought but snuff and ashes in our urn:

God will restore those fallen lights again,

And kindle them to an eternal flame.

Like to the falling of a star;

Or as the flights of eagles are;

Or like the fresh springs gaudy hue;

Or silver drops of morning dew;

Or like a wind that chafes the flood;

Or bubbles which on water stood;

Even such is man, whose borrow'd light

Is straight call'd in, and paid to night.

The wind blows out; the bubble dies;

10The Spring entomb'd in Autumn lies;

The dew dries up; the star is shot;

The flight is past; and man forgot.

Like as the damask rose you see;

Or like the blossom on the tree;

Or like the dainty flower of May;

Or like the morning to the day;

Or like the Sun; or like the shade;

Or like the gourd which Jonas had;

Even such is man, whose thread is spun,

Drawn out, and cut, and so is done.

The rose withers; the blossom blasteth;

The flower fades; the morning hasteth;

The sun sets; the shadow flies;

The gourd consumes; and man he dies.

Like to the Grass that's newly sprung;

Or like a tale that's new begun;

Or like the bird that's here to-day;

Or like the pearled dew of May;

Or like an hour; or like a span;

Or like the singing of a swan;

Even such is man, who lives by breath,

Is here, now there, in life, and death.

The grass withers; the tale is ended;

The bird is flown; the dew's ascended;

The hour is short; the span not long;

The swan's near death; man's life is done.

Like to the bubble in the brook;

Or, in a glass, much like a look;

Or like a shuttle in weaver's hand;

Or like the writing on the sand;

Or like a thought; or like a dream;

Or like the gliding of the stream;

Even such is man, who lives by breath,

Is here, now there, in life, and death.

The bubble's cut; the look's forgot;

The shuttle's flung; the writing's blot;

The thought is past; the dream is gone;

The water glides; man's life is done.

Like to an arrow from the bow;

Or like swift course of watery flow;

Or like the time twixt flood and ebb;

Or like the spider's tender web;

Or like a race; or like a goal;

Or like the dealing of a dole;

Even such is man whose brittle state

Is always subject unto fate.

The arrow's shot; the flood soon spent;

The time no time; the web soon rent;

The race soon run; the goal soon won;

The dole soon dealt; man's life first done.

Like to the lightning from the sky;

Or like a post that quick doth hie;

Or like a quaver in short song;

Or like a journey three days long;

Or like the snow when summer's come;

Or like the pear; or like the plum;

Even such is man, who heaps up sorrow,

Lives but this day, and dies to-morrow,

The lightning's past; the post must go;

The song is short; the journey's so;

The pear doth rot; the plum doth fall;

The snow dissolves; and so must all.

Like to the damask Rose you see, &c.

Like to the blaze of fond delight;

Or like a morning clear and bright;

Or like a post; or like a shower;

Or like the pride of Babel's Tower;

Or like the hour that guides the time;

Or like to beauty in her prime;

Even such is man, whose glory lends

His life a blaze or two, and ends.

Delights vanish; the morn o'er casteth;

The frost breaks; the shower hasteth;

The Tower falls; the hour spends;

The beauty fades; and man's life ends.

Like to a silkworm of one year;

Or like a wronged lover's tear;

Or on the waves a rudder's dint;

Or like the sparkles of a flint:

Or like to little cakes perfum'd;

Or fireworks made to be consum'd;

Even such is man, and all that trust

In weak and animated dust.

The silkworm droops; the tear's soon shed;

The ship's way lost; the sparkle dead;

The cake is burnt; the firework done;

And man as these as quickly gone.

Like to the rolling of an eye:

Or like a star shot from the sky;

Or like a hand upon a clock;

Or like a wave upon a rock;

Or like a wind; or like a flame;

Or like false news which people frame;

Even such is man, of equal stay

Whose very growth leads to decay.

The eye is turned; the star down bendeth;

The hand doth steal; the wave descendeth;

The wind is spent; the flame unfir'd;

The news disprov'd; man's life expir'd.

Like to an eye which sleep doth chain;

Or like a star whose fall we faine [ = feign];

Or like a shade on A[t]haz' watch:

Or like a wave which gulfs do snatch;

Or like a wind or flame that's past;

Or smother'd news confirm'd at last;

Even so man's life, pawn'd in the grave,

Waits for a rising it must have

The eye still sees; the star still blazeth;

The shade goes back; the wave escapeth;

The wind is turn'd, the flame reviv'd,

The news renew'd; and man new liv'd.

Ill busi'd man! why shouldst thou take such care

To lengthen out thy life's short kalendar?

When every spectacle thou look'st upon

Presents and acts thy execution.

Each drooping season and each flower doth cry,

Fool! as I fade and wither, thou must die.

The beating of thy pulse (when thou art well)

Is just the tolling of thy passing bell:

Night is thy hearse, whose sable canopy

10Covers alike deceased day and thee.

And all those weeping dews which nightly fall,

Are but the tears shed for thy funeral.

Hearken, O God, unto a wretch's cries,

Who low dejected at thy footstool lies.

Let not the clamour of my heinous sin

Drown my requests, which strive to enter in

At those bright gates, which always open stand

To such as beg remission at thy hand.

Too well I know, if thou in rigour deal,

I can nor pardon ask, nor yet appeal:

To my hoarse voice, heaven will no audience grant,

10But deaf as brass, and hard as adamant

Beat back my words; therefore I bring to thee

A gracious Advocate to plead for me.

What though my leprous soul no Jordan can

Recure, nor floods of the lav'd Ocean

Make clean? yet from my Saviour's bleeding side

Two large and medicinable rivers glide.

Lord, wash me where those streams of life abound,

And new Bethesdas flow from ev'ry wound.

If I this precious lather may obtain,

20I shall not then despair for any stain;

I need no Gilead's balm, nor oil, nor shall

I for the purifying hyssop call:

My spots will vanish in His purple flood,

And crimson there turn white, though wash'd with blood.

See, Lord! with broken heart and bended knee,

How I address my humble suit to Thee;

O give that suit admittance to Thy ears,

Which floats to Thee, not in my words, but tears:

And let my sinful soul this mercy crave,

30Before I fall into the silent grave.

Well did the Prophet ask, Lord, what is Man?

Implying by the question none can

But God resolve the doubt, much less define

What elements this child of dust combine.

Man is a stranger to himself, and knows

Nothing so naturally as his woes.

He loves to travel countries, and confer

The sides of Heaven's vast diameter:

Delights to sit in Nile or BÆtis' lap,

10Before he hath sail'd over his own map;

By which means he returns, his travel spent,

Less knowing of himself than when he went.

Who knowledge hunt kept under foreign locks,

May bring home wit to hold a paradox,

Yet be fools still. Therefore, might I advise,

I would inform the soul before the eyes:

Make man into his proper optics look,

And so become the student and the book.

With his conception, his first leaf, begin;

20What is he there but complicated sin?

When riper time, and the approaching birth

Ranks him among the creatures of the earth,

His wailing mother sends him forth to greet

The light, wrapp'd in a bloody winding sheet;

As if he came into the world to crave

No place to dwell in, but bespeak a grave.

Thus like a red and tempest-boding morn

His dawning is: for being newly born

He hails th' ensuing storm with shrieks and cries,

30And fines for his admission with wet eyes.

How should that plant, whose leaf is bath'd in tears,

Bear but a bitter fruit in elder years?

Just such is this, and his maturer age

Teems with event more sad than the presage.

Thus are his sins scourg'd in opposed themes,

And luxuries reveng'd by their extremes.

He who in health could never be content

With rarities fetch'd from each element,

Is now much more afflicted to delight

His tasteless palate, and lost appetite.

Besides, though God ordain'd, that with the light

60Man should begin his work, yet he made night

For his repose, in which the weary sense

Repairs itself by rest's soft recompense.

But now his watchful nights and troubled days

Confused heaps of fear and fancy raise.

His chamber seems a loose and trembling mine;

His pillow quilted with a porcupine;

Pain makes his downy couch sharp thorns appear,

And ev'ry feather prick him like a spear.

Thus, when all forms of death about him keep,

70He copies death in any form, but sleep.

Poor walking-clay! hast thou a mind to know

To what unblest beginnings thou dost owe

Thy wretched self? fall sick a while, and than

Thou wilt conceive the pedigree of Man.

Learn shalt thou from thine own anatomy,

That earth his mother, worms his sisters be.

That he's a short-liv'd vapour upward wrought,

And by corruption unto nothing brought.

A stagg'ring meteor by cross planets beat,

80Which often reels and falls before his set;

This is the model of frail man: then say

That his duration's only for a day:

And in that day more fits of changes pass,

Than atoms run in the turn'd hour-glass.

So that th' incessant cares which life invade

90Might for strong truth their heresy persuade,

Who did maintain that human souls are sent

Into the body for their punishment:

At least with that Greek sage still make us cry,

Not to be born, or, being born, to die.

But Faith steers up to a more glorious scope,

Which sweetens our sharp passage; and firm hope

Anchors our torn barks on a blessed shore,

Beyond the Dead Sea we here ferry o'er.

To this, Death is our pilot, and disease

100The agent which solicits our release.

Though crosses then pour on my restless head,

Or ling'ring sickness nail me to my bed:

Let this my thought's eternal comfort be,

That my clos'd eyes a better light shall see.

And when by fortune's or by nature's stroke

My body's earthen pitcher must be broke,

My soul, like Gideon's lamp, from her crack'd urn

Shall Death's black night to endless lustre turn.

What is th' existence of Man's life

But open war, or slumber'd strife?

Where sickness to his sense presents

The combat of the elements;

And never feels a perfect peace,

Till Death's cold hand signs his release.

It is a storm, where the hot blood

Outvies in rage the boiling flood;

And each loud passion of the mind

10Is like a furious gust of wind,

Which beats his bark with many a wave,

Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower, which buds and grows,

And withers as the leaves disclose;

Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,

Like fits of waking before sleep:

Then shrinks into that fatal mould,

Where its first being was enroll'd.

It is a dream, whose seeming truth

20Is moraliz'd in age and youth:

Where all the comforts he can share

As wand'ring as his fancies are;

Till in a mist of dark decay

The dreamer vanish quite away.

It is a dial, which points out

The sun-set as it moves about:

And shadows out in lines of night

The subtile stages of Time's flight,

Till all obscuring earth hath laid

30The body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary interlude

Which doth short joys, long woes include.

The World the stage, the Prologue tears,

The Acts vain hope, and varied fears;

The Scene shuts up with loss of breath,

And leaves no Epilogue but Death.

Light'ned by that dim torch our sorrow bears,

We sadly trace thy coffin with our tears;

And though the ceremonious rites are past

Since thy fair body into earth was cast,

Though all thy hatchments into rags are torn,

Thy funeral robes and ornaments outworn;

We still thy mourners, without show or art,

With solemn blacks hung round about our heart,

Thus constantly the obsequies renew,

10Which to thy precious memory are due.

Yet think not that we rudely would invade

The dark recess of thine untroubled shade,

Or give disturbance to that happy peace,

Which thou enjoy'st at full since thy release:

Much less in sullen murmurs do complain

Of His decree who took thee back again,

And did, ere Fame had spread thy virtue's light,

Eclipse and fold thee up in endless night.

This, like an act of envy, not of grief,

20Might doubt thy bliss, and shake our own belief,

Whose studied wishes no proportion bear

With joys which crown thee now in glory's sphere.

Know then, blest Soul! we for ourselves, not thee,

Seal our woe's dictate by this elegy:

Wherein our tears, united in one stream,

Shall to succeeding times convey this theme,

Worth all men's pity, who discern, how rare

Such early growths of fame and goodness are.

Of these, part must thy sex's loss bewail,

30Maim'd in her noblest patterns through thy fail;

For 'twould require a double term of life

To match thee as a daughter or a wife;

Both which Northumberland's dear loss improve,

And make his sorrow equal to his love.

The rest fall for ourselves, who, cast behind,

Cannot yet reach the peace which thou dost find;

But slowly follow thee in that dull stage

Which most untimely posted hence thy age.

Thus, like religious pilgrims, who design

40A short salute to their beloved shrine,

Most sad and humble votaries we come,

To offer up our sighs upon thy tomb,

And wet thy marble with our dropping eyes,

Which, till the spring which feeds their current dries,

Resolve each falling night and rising day,

This mournful homage at thy grave to pay.