Silent and sad I walk about all day, As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by Alas! my treasure's gone! why do I stay? He was my friend, the truest friend on earth; By friendship given of old to fame. None but his brethren he and sisters knew, For much above myself I lov'd them too. Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights, We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine; Wit, Eloquence, and Poetry, Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine. Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say Was there a tree about which did not know Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade; Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid! . Henceforth, no learned youths beneath you sing, No whistling winds through the glad branches fly: Mute and unmoved be, Mute as the grave wherein my friend does lie. To him my Muse made haste with every strain, With which I now adorn his hearse; And this my grief, without thy help, shall write. Had I a wreath of bays about my brow, Instead of bays, crown with sad cypress me; Not Phoebus griev❜d, so much as I, Large was his soul; as large a soul as e'er High as the place 't was shortly' in heaven to have, So high, that all the Virtues there did come, Conspicuous and great; So low, that for me too it made a room. He scorn'd this busy world below, and all That shine with beams like flame, Yet burn not with the same, gone, Had all the light of youth, of the fire none. Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught, Whene'er the skilful youth discours'd or writ, About his eloquent tongue, Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit. So strong a wit did Nature to him frame, Oh! had he liv'd in Learning's world, what bound Would have been able to control His over-powering soul! We 'ave lost in him arts that not yet are found. His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit, And, when deep talk and wisdom came in view, As if wise Nature had made that her book. So many virtues join'd in him, as we Just like the first and highest sphere, With as much zeal, devotion, piety, He always liv'd, as other saints do die. Weeping all debts out ere he slept: Which still in water sets at night, Unsullied with his journey of the day. Wondrous young man! why wert thou made so good, To be snatch'd hence ere better understood? Snatch'd before half of thee enough was seen! Thou ripe, and yet thy life but green! Nor could thy friends take their last sad farewell; Where life, spirit, pleasure, always us'd to dwell. But happy thou, ta'en from this frantic age, See'st not a soul cloth'd with more light than thine. And, if the glorious saints cease not to know There, whilst immortal hymns thou dost rehearse, Our dull and earthly poesy, Where grief and misery can be join'd with verse. |