UPON THE HONOURABLE HENRY CAMPBELL,
IT's false arithmetic to say thy breath Expir'd too soon, or irreligious death Profan'd thy holy youth; for if thy years Be number'd by thy virtues or our tears*, Thou didst the old Methusalem outlive. Though Time but twenty years account can give Of thy abode on earth, yet every hour Of thy brave youth by virtue's wondrous power Was lengthen'd to a year; each well-spent day Keeps young the body, but the soul makes grey. Such miracles work goodness; and behind Thou'st left to us such stories of thy mind Fit for example; that when them we read, We envy earth the treasure of the dead. Why do the sinful riot, and survive The fevers of their surfeits? Why alive Is yet disorder'd greatness, and all they Who the loose laws of their wild blood obey ? Why lives the gamester, who doth black the night With cheats and imprecations? Why is light
Be number'd by thy virtues or our tears, &c.] So Young: Methusalems may die at twenty-one.
Look'd on by those whose breath may poison it; Who sold the vigour of their strength and wit To buy diseases: and thou, who fair truth And virtue didst adore, lost in thy youth?
But I'll not question fate : heaven doth convey Those first from the dark prison of their clay Who are most fit for heaven. Thou in war Hadst ta'en degrees, those dangers felt, which are The props on which peace safely dost subsist, And through the cannons' blue and horrid mist Hadst brought her light; and now wert so complete, That nought but death did want to make thee great. Thy death was timely then bright soul to thee, And in thy fate thou suffer'dst not; 'twas we Who died, robb'd of thy life: in whose increase Of real glory, both in war and peace,
We all did share: and thou away we fear
Didst with thee the whole stock of honour bear. Each then be his own mourner: we'll to thee Write hymns, upon the world an elegy.
Castara, by W. Habington.
ACCEPT, thou shrine of my dead saint,
Instead of dirges, this complaint;
And for sweet flowers to crown thy hearse, Receive a strew of weeping verse
From thy griev'd friend, whom thou might'st see Quite melted into tears for thee.
Dear loss! since thy untimely fate My task hath been to meditate
On thee, on thee: thou art the book, The library whereon I look
Though almost blind, for thee (lov'd clay) I languish out, not live the day,
Using no other exercise
But what I practise with mine eyes : By which wet glasses I find out How lazily Time creeps about To one that mourns: this, only this My exercise and bus'ness is: So I compute the weary hours With sighs dissolved into showers.
Nor wonder if my time go thus Backward and most preposterous; Thou hast benighted me; thy set, This eve of blackness did beget, Who wast my day, (though overcast Before thou hadst thy noontide past) And I remember must, in tears, Thou scarce hadst seen so many years As day tells hours; by thy clear sun My love and fortune first did run; But thou wilt never more appear Folded within my hemisphere, Since both thy light and motion Like a fled star is fall'n and gone,
And 'twixt me and my soul's dear wish The earth now interposed is,
Which such a strange eclipse doth make As ne'er was read in almanack. I could allow thee for a time
To darken me and my sad clime,
Were it a month, a year, or ten, I would thy exile live till then; And all that space my mirth adjourn, So thou would'st promise to return; And putting off thy ashy shroud At length disperse this sorrow's cloud. But woe is me! the longest date Too narrow is to calculate These empty hopes: never shall I Be so much bless'd as to descry A glimpse of thee, till that day come Which shall the earth to cinders doom, And a fierce fever must calcine
The body of this world like thine, (My little world!) that fit of fire Once off, our bodies shall aspire To our soul's bliss: then we shall rise, And view ourselves with clearer eyes In that calm region, where no night Can hide us from each others sight.
Meantime, thou hast her, earth: much good
May my harm do thee! since it stood
With heaven's will I might not call
Her longer mine, I give thee all My short-liv'd right and interest In her, whom living I lov'd best: With a most free and bounteous grief, I give thee what I could not keep. Be kind to her, and prithee look Thou write into thy doomsday book Each parcel of this rarity
Which in thy casket shrin'd doth lie: See that thou make thy reck'ning straight, And yield her back again by weight;
For thou must audit on thy trust Each grain and atom of this dust, As thou wilt answer him that lent, Not gave, thee my dear monument; So close the ground, and 'bout her shade Black curtains draw, my bride is laid.
Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed Never to be disquieted!
My last good night! thou wilt not wake Till I thy fate shall overtake:
Till age, or grief, or sickness, must Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves; and fill the room My heart keeps empty in thy tomb. Stay for me there; I will not fail To meet thee in that hollow vale. And think not much of my delay: I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed Desire can make, or sorrows breed. Each minute is a short degree, And ev'ry hour a step towards thee. At night when I betake to rest, Next morn I rise nearer my west Of life, almost by eight hours sail, Than when sleep breath'd his drowsy gale. Thus from the sun my bottom steers, And my day's compass downward bears: Nor labour I to stem the tide
Through which to thee I swiftly glide.
"Tis true, with shame and grief I yield, Thou like the van first took'st the field, And gotten hast the victory
In thus adventuring to die
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