ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY,
MORTALITY, behold, and fear,
What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within these heap of stones;
Here they lie, had realms, and lands,
Who now want strength to stir their hands
Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust,
They preach, in greatness is no trust.
Here's an acre sown indeed,
With the richest, royal'st seed,
That the earth did e'er suck in
Since the first man died for sin :
Here the bones of birth have cried,
Though gods they were, yet men they died:
Here are sands, ignoble things,
Dropp'd from the ruin'd sides of kings.
Here's a world of pomp and state
Buried in dust, once dead by Fate.
EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH L. H.
WOULD'ST thou hear what man can say
In a little? reader stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die :
Which in life did harbour give
To as much virtue as could live.
If, at all, she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE,
SISTER TO SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
UNDERNEATH this marble herse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Learn'd and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw his dart at thee.
EPITAPH ON MICHAEL DRAYTON.
Do, pious marble, let thy readers know
What they, and what their children owe
To Drayton's sacred name; whose dust
We recommend unto thy trust.
Protect his memory, preserve his story,
And be a lasting monument of his glory.
And when thy ruins shall disclaim,
To be the treasury of his name;
His name, which cannot fade, shall be
A lasting monument of thee.
EPITAPH ON THE LADY MARY VILLIERS.
THE lady Mary Villiers lies
Under this stone; with weeping eyes
The parents that first gave her birth,
And their sad friends, laid her in earth:
If any of them (reader) were
Known unto thee, shed a tear;
Or if thyself possess a gem,
As dear to thee, as this to them;
Though a stranger to this place,
Bewail in theirs, thine own hard case;
For thou perhaps at thy return
May'st find thy darling in an urn.
EPITAPH ON THAT HOPEFUL YOUNG GENTLEMAN,
THE LORD WRIOTHESLEY.
HERE lies a soldier, who in youth desir'd
His valiant father's noble steps to tread,
And swiftly from his friends and country fled,
While to the height of glory he aspir'd.
The cruel Fates, with bitter envy fir'd,
To see war's prudence in so young a head,
Sent from their dusky caves to strike him dead,
A strong disease, in peaceful robes attir'd.
This murderer kills him with a silent dart,
And having drawn it bloody from the son,
Throws it again into the father's heart,
And to his lady boasts what he hath done.
What help can men against pale Death provide, When twice within few days Southampton died! Sir Francis Beaumont,
EPITAPH ON MR. ASHTON, A CONFORMABLE
THE modest front of this small floor,
Believe me, reader, can say no more
Than many a braver marble can,
Here lies a truly honest man;
One whose conscience was a thing,
That troubled neither church nor king.
One of those few that in this town
Honour all preachers; hear their own.
Sermons he heard, yet not so many
As left no time to practise any.
He heard them reverently, and then
His practice preach'd them o'er again.
His parlour-sern
ermons rather were
Those to the eye than to the ear.
His prayers took their price and strength
Not from the loudness nor the length;
He was a protestant at home,
Not only in despite of Rome:
He lov'd his father, yet, his zeal
Tore not off his mother's veil.
To th' church he did allow her dress,
True beauty to true holiness.
Peace, which he lov'd in life, did lend
Her hand to bring him to his end:
When Age and Death call'd for the score,
No surfeits were to reckon for;
Death tore not (therefore) but sans strife
Gently untwin'd his thread of life.
What remains then, but that thou
Write these lines, reader, in thy brow,
And by his fair example's light,
Burn in thy imitation bright.
So while these lines can but bequeath
A life perhaps unto his death,
His better epitaph shall be,
His life still kept alive in thee.
EPITAPH ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET.
IN THE CHURCH OF WITHYAM, SUSSEX.
DORSET, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died!
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Bless'd satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd vice had his hate and pity too.
Bless'd courtier! who could king and country
please,
Yet sacred keep his friendships and his ease.
Bless'd pier! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets, shine,
And patriots still, or poets, deck the line.
|