The Works

RIGHT HONOURABLE

ROBERT,

EARL OF OXFORD

AND EARL MORTIMER.

SUCE

UCH were the notes thy once lov'd Poet fung,' 'Till death untimely stopt his tuneful tongue. O just beheld, and lost! admir'd, and mourn'd! With softeft manners, gentlest arts, adorn'd! Bleft in each science, bleft in ev'ry strain ! Dear to the Muse, to HARLEY dear- -in vain! For him, thou oft haft bid the world attend, Fond to forget the statesman in the friend; For SWIFT and him, despiş'd the farce of state, The fober follies of the wife and great; Dextrous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit, And pleas'd to 'scape from flattery to wit. ABSENT or dead, still let a friend be dear, (A figh the abfent claims, the dead a tear) Recall thofe nights that clos'd thy toilfome days, Still hear thy PARNELL in his living lays:

Who carelefs, now, of int'reft, fame, or fate,
Perhaps forgets that OXFORD e'er was great;
Or deeming meanest what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

And fure if ought below the feats divine
Can touch immortals, 'tis a foul like thine:
A foul fupreme, in each hard inftance try'd,
Above all pain, all anger, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blaft of public breath,
The luft of lucre, and the dread of death.

In vain to defarts thy retreat is made;
The mufe attends thee to the filent shade:
'Tis her's, the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Re-judge his acts, and dignify difgrace.

When int'reft calls off all her fneaking train,
When all th' oblig'd defert, and all the vain;
She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell,
When the last ling'ring friend has bid farewel.
Ev'n now fhe fhades thy ev'ning walk with bays,
(No hireling fhe, no prostitute to praise)
Ev'n now, obfervant of the parting ray,
Eyes the calm fun-fet of thy various day,
Thro' fortune's cloud one truly great can fee,
Nor fears to tell, that MORTIMER is he.

SEPT. 25.

1721.5

A. POPE.