It grieves me when I see what fate Does on the best of mankind wait. Poets or lovers let them be, "T is neither love nor poesy Can arm, against death's smallest dart, But when their life, in its decline, All the world's mortal to them then, Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves CHRIST'S PASSION, TAKEN OUT OF A GREEK ODE, WRITTEN BY MR. MASTERS, OF NEW-COLLEGE, IN OXFORD. ENOUGH, my Muse! of earthly things, Take up thy lute, and to it bind Loud and everlasting strings; And on them play, and to them sing, The lamentable glories, Of the great crucified King. How shall I grasp this boundless thing? With all their comments can explain; How all the whole world's life to die did not disdain! I'll sing the searchless depths of the compassion Divine, By reason's plummet, and the line of wit; |