Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave.
But hark! my pulse like a soft drum
Beats my approach, tells thee I come ;
And slow howe'er my marches be,
I shall at last sit down by thee.
The thought of this bids me go on,
And wait my dissolution
With hope and comfort, Dear (forgive
The crime) I am content to live
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet and never part.
MY DEAR SON, GERVASE BEAUMONT.
CAN I, who have for others oft compil'd
The songs of Death, forget my sweetest child,
Which like a flow'r crush'd with a blast is dead,
And ere full time hangs down bis smiling head,
Expecting with clear hope to live anew,
Among the angels fed with heav'nly dew?
We have this sign of joy, that many days,
While on the earth his struggling spirit stays,
The name of Jesus in his mouth contains
His only food, his sleep, his ease from pains.
that sound be rooted in my mind
Of which in him such strong effect I find.
Dear lord, receive my son, whose winning love
To me was like a friendship, far above
The course of nature, or his tender age,
Whose looks could all my bitter griefs assuage;
Let his pure soul, ordain'd sev'n years to be
In that frail body, which was part of me,
Remain my pledge in heav'n, as sent to show,
How to this port at ev'ry step I go.
Sir John Beaumont's Poems.
FUNERALS OF THE HON. GEO. TALBOT, ESQ.
MY BEST FRIEND AND KINSMAN.
Go, stop the swift wing'd moments in their flight
To their yet unknown coast; go, hinder night
From its approach on day, and force day-rise
From the fair east of some bright beauty's eyes:
Else vaunt not the proud miracle of verse.
It hath no power, for mine from his black hearse
Redeems not Talbot, who, cold as the breath
Of winter, coffin'd lies; silent as death,
Stealing on th' Anch'rit, who even wants an ear
To breathe into his soft expiring prayer.
For had thy life been by thy virtues spun
Out to a length, thou hadst outliv'd the sun,
And clos'd the world's great eye: or were not all
Our wonders fiction, from thy funeral
Thou hadst received new life, and liv'd to be
The conqueror o'er Death, inspir'd by me.
But all we poets glory in is vain
And empty triumph: Art cannot regain
One poor hour lost, nor rescue a small fly
By a fool's finger destinate* to die.
Live then in thy true life (great soul), for set
At liberty by Death thou owest no debt
T'exacting Nature: live, freed from the sport
Of time and fortune, in yon starry court
A glorious potentate, while we below
But fashion ways to mitigate our woe.
We follow camps, and to our hopes propose
Th' insulting victor; not rememb'ring those
Dismember'd trunks who gave him victory
By a loath'd fate: we covetous merchants be,
And to our aims pretend treasure and sway,
Forgetful of the treasons of the sea.
The shootings of a wounded conscience
We patiently sustain to serve our sense
With a short pleasure; so we empire gain,
And rule the fate of business, the sad pain
Of action we contemn, and the affright
Which with pale visions still attends our night.
Our joys false apparitions, but our fears
Are certain prophecies, and till our ears
Reach that celestial music, which thine now
So cheerfully receive, we must allow
destinate to die.] One would suppose it should be
No comfort to our griefs: from which to be
Exempted, is in death to follow thee.
Castara, by W. Habington.
TWO CHILDREN DYING OF ONE DISEASE,
BROUGHT forth in sorrow, and bred up in care,
Two tender children here entombed are:
One place, one sire, one womb their being gave,
They had one mortal sickness, and one grave;
And though they cannot number many years
In their account, yet with their parents' tears
This comfort mingles; though their days were few
They scarcely sin, but never sorrow knew*:
though their days were few
They scarcely sin, but never sorrow knew.] A consolation of the same nature we find in the following exquisite Epigram of Lucian:
Παϊδά με πελαέτηρον, ἀκηδία Θυμὸν ἔχονία,
Νηλειὴς Αιδης ἥρπασε Καλλίμαχον.
Αλλά με μὴ Κλαίοις, καὶ γὰρ Βίοτοιο μετέσχον
Παύρο, καὶ παύρων τῶν Βιότοιο κακῶν.
Puerum me quinquennem curarum expers pectus habentem
Immitis Orcus rapuit Callimachum:
At ne me lugeas, etenim vitæ particeps fui
Modica, et paucorum vitæ malorum.
So that they well might boast, they carried hence
What riper ages lose, their innocence.
You pretty losses, that revive the fate
Which in your mother Death did antedate,
O let my high-swoln grief distil on you
The saddest drops of a parental dew:
You ask no other dower than what my eyes
Lay out on your untimely exequies:
When once I have discharg'd that mournful score,
Heav'n hath decreed you ne'er shall cost me more,
Since you release and quit my borrow'd trust,
By taking this inheritance of dust.
ATHER of poets, though thine own great day,
Struck from thyself, scorns that a weaker ray
Should twine in lustre with it, yet my flame,
Kindled from thine, flies upward towards thy name:
For in the acclamation of the less
There's piety, though from it no access:
And though my ruder thoughts make me of those
Who hide and cover what they should disclose,
Yet where the lustre's such, he makes it seen
Better to some that draws the veil between.
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