ANOTHER.

Fever Pity were acquainted

With stern death; if e'er he fainted
Or forgot the cruel vigour

Of an adamantine rigour,

Here, O, here, we should have known it,

Here or nowhere he'd have shown it.
For he whose precious memory
Bathes in tears of every eye:
He to whom our sorrow brings
All the streams of all her springs,
Was so rich in grace and nature,
In all the gifts that bless a creature ;
The fresh hopes of his lovely youth
Flourish'd in so fair a growth;

So sweet the temple was that shrined
The sacred sweetness of his mind;
That could the Fates know to relent;
Could they know what mercy meant ;
Or had ever learnt to bear

The soft tincture of a tear;

Tears would now have flow'd so deep
As might have taught grief how to weep;
Now all their steely operation

Would quite have lost the cruel fashion:
Sickness would have gladly been

Sick himself to have saved him:
And his fever wish'd to prove

Burning only in his love;

Him when wrath itself had seen,
Wrath itself had lost his spleen;
Grim destruction here amazed,
Instead of striking would have gazed;
Even the iron-pointed pen,

That notes the tragic dooms of men,
Wet with tears still'd from the eyes
Of the flinty destinies,

Would have learnt a softer style,
And have been ashamed to spoil
His life's sweet story, by the haste
Of a cruel stop ill placed

In the dark volume of our fate,
Whence each leaf of life hath date;
Where, in sad particulars,

The total sum of man appears;

And the short clause of mortal breath

Bound in the period of death.

In all the book if anywhere

Such a term as this, " Spare here,"

Could have been found, 'twould have been read,

Writ in white letters o'er his head:

Or close unto his name annex'd

The fair gloss of a fairer text.
In brief, if any one were free,
He was that one, and only he.

But he, alas! even he is dead,
And our hopes' fair harvest spread
In the dust! pity now spend

All the tears that grief can lend :

Sad mortality may hide

In his ashes all her pride,

With this inscription o'er his head :-
All hope of never dying here lies dead.

HIS EPITAPH.

ASSENGER, whoe'er thou art,
Stay awhile, and let thy heart
Take acquaintance of this stone,

Before thou passest further on.

This stone will tell thee that beneath
Is entomb'd the crime of death;
The ripe endowments of whose mind
Left his years so much behind,
That, numb'ring of his virtue's praise,
Death lost the reckoning of his days;
And, believing what they told,
Imagined him exceeding old.
In him perfection did set forth
The strength of her united worth;
Him his wisdom's pregnant growth
Made so reverend, even in youth,
That in the centre of his breast-
Sweet as is the Phoenix' nest-
Every reconciled grace

Had their general meeting-place;
In him goodness joy'd to see
Learning learn humility.

The splendour of his birth and blood
Was but the gloss of his own good;
The flourish of his sober youth
Was the pride of naked truth;
In composure of his face
Lived a fair but manly grace;
His mouth was rhetoric's best mould,
His tongue the touchstone of her gold;
What word soe'er his breast kept warm
Was no word now, but a
'charm:
For all persuasive graces thence
Suck'd their sweetest influence.
His virtue, that within had root,
Could not choose but shine without;
And th' heart-bred lustre of his worth,
At each corner peeping forth,
Pointed him out in all his ways,
Circled round in his own rays:
That to his sweetness all men's eyes
Were vow'd love's flaming sacrifice.

Him while fresh and fragrant time
Cherish'd in his golden prime;
Ere Hebe's hand had overlaid

His smooth cheeks with a downy shade;
The rush of death's unruly wave

Swept him off into his grave.

Enough, now, if thou canst, pass on ; For now, alas! not in this stone, Passenger, whoe'er thou art,

Is he entomb'd, but in thy heart.

AN EPITAPH UPON HUSBAND AND WIFE,

康

Who died and were buried together.

O these whom death again did wed,
This grave's the second marriage-bed.
For though the hand of Fate could force
"Twixt soul and body a divorce,

It could not sever man and wife,
Because they both lived but one life.
Peace, good reader, do not weep;
Peace, the lovers are asleep.
They, sweet turtles, folded lie

In the last knot that love could tie.
Let them sleep, let them sleep on,
Till the stormy night be gone,
And the eternal morrow dawn;
Then the curtains will be drawn,

And they wake into a light

Whose day shall never die in night.

"

AN EPITAPH UPON DOCTOR BROOK.

BROOK, whose stream so great, so good,
Was loved, was honour'd as a flood;
Whose banks the Muses dwelt upon

More than their own Helicon;

Here, at length, hath gladly found
A quiet passage underground: