The love I bore to your brother, and will do to his memory, hath craved
from me this last duty of a friend; I am herein but a second to the
privilege of truth, who can warrant more in his behalf than I undertook to
deliver. Exercise in this kind I will little affect, and am less addicted
to, but there must be miracle in that labor which, to witness my
remembrance to this departed gentleman, I would not willingly undergo. Yet
whatsoever is here done, is done to him and to him only. For whom and whose
sake I will not forget to remember any friendly respects to you, or to any
of those that have loved him for himself, and himself for his
deserts.
| Since time, and his predestinated end,
|
| Abridged the circuit of his hopeful days,
|
| Whiles both his youth and virtue did intend
|
| The good endeavors of deserving praise,
|
5 | What memorable monument can last
|
Whereon to build his never-blemished name
|
But his own worth, wherein his life was graced. . .
|
Sith as that ever he maintained the same?
|
Oblivion in the darkest day to come,
|
10 | When sin shall tread on merit in the dust,
|
Cannot rase out the lamentable tomb
|
Of his short-lived deserts; but still they must,
|
Even in the hearts and memories of men,
|
Claim fit respect, that they, in every limb
|
15 | Remembering what he was, with comfort then
|
May pattern out one truly good, by him.
|
For he was truly good, if honest care
|
Of harmless conversation may commend
|
A life free from such stains as follies are,
|
20 | Ill recompensed only in his end.
|
Nor can the tongue of him who loved him least
|
(If there can be minority of love
|
To one superlative above the rest
|
Of many men in steady faith) reprove
|
25 | His constant temper, in the equal weight
|
Of thankfulness and kindness: Truth doth leave
|
Sufficient proof, he was in every right
|
As kind to give, as thankful to receive.
|
The curious eye of a quick-brained survey
|
30 | Could scantly find a mote amidst the sun
|
Of his too-shortened days, or make a prey
|
Of any faulty errors he had done.
|
Not that he was above the spleenful sense
|
And spite of malice, but for that he had
|
35 | Warrant enough in his own innocence
|
Against the sting of some in nature bad.
|
Yet who is he so absolutely blest
|
That lives encompassed in a mortal frame,
|
Sometime in reputation not oppressed
|
40 | By some in nothing famous but defame?
|
Such in the bypath and the ridgeway lurk
|
That leads to ruin, in a smooth pretense
|
Of what they do to be a special work
|
Of singleness, not tending to offense;
|
45 | Whose very virtues are, not to detract
|
Whiles hope remains of gain (base fee of slaves),
|
Despising chiefly men in fortunes wracked.
|
But death to such gives unremembered graves.
|
Now therein lived he happy, if to be
|
50 | Free from detraction happiness it be.
|
His younger years gave comfortable hope
|
To hope for comfort in his riper youth,
|
Which, harvest-like, did yield again the crop
|
Of education, bettered in his truth.
|
55 | Those noble twins of heaven-infused races,
|
Learning and wit, refined in their kind
|
Did jointly both, in their peculiar graces,
|
Enrich the curious temple of his mind;
|
Indeed a temple, in whose precious white
|
60 | Sat reason by religion overswayed,
|
Teaching his other senses, with delight,
|
How piety and zeal should be obeyed.
|
Not fruitlessly in prodigal expense
|
Wasting his best of time, but so content
|
65 | With reason's golden mean to make defense
|
Against the assault of youth's encouragement;
|
As not the tide of this surrounding age
|
(When now his father's death had freed his will)
|
Could make him subject to the drunken rage
|
70 | Of such whose only glory is their ill.
|
He from the happy knowledge of the wise
|
Draws virtue to reprove secured fools
|
And shuns the glad sleights of ensnaring vice
|
To spend his spring of days in sacred schools.
|
75 | Here gave he diet to the sick desires
|
That day by day assault the weaker man,
|
And with fit moderation still retires
|
From what doth batter virtue now and then.
|
But that I not intend in full discourse
|
80 | To progress out his life, I could display
|
A good man in each part exact and force
|
The common voice to warrant what I say.
|
For if his fate and heaven had decreed
|
That full of days he might have lived to see
|
85 | The grave in peace, the times that should succeed
|
Had been best-speaking witnesses with me;
|
Whose conversation so untouched did move
|
Respect most in itself, as who would scan
|
His honesty and worth, by them might prove
|
90 | He was a kind, true, perfect gentleman.
|
Not in the outside of disgraceful folly,
|
Courting opinion with unfit disguise,
|
Affecting fashions, nor addicted wholly
|
To unbeseeming blushless vanities,
|
95 | But suiting so his habit and desire
|
As that his virtue was his best attire.
|
Not in the waste of many idle words
|
Cared he to be heard talk, nor in the float
|
Of fond conceit, such as this age affords,
|
100 | By vain discourse upon himself to dote;
|
For his becoming silence gave such grace
|
To his judicious parts, as what he spake
|
Seemed rather answers which the wise embrace
|
Than busy questions such as talkers make.
|
105 | And though his qualities might well deserve
|
Just commendation, yet his furnished mind
|
Such harmony of goodness did preserve
|
As nature never built in better kind;
|
Knowing the best, and therefore not presuming
|
110 | In knowing, but for that it was the best,
|
Ever within himself free choice resuming
|
Of true perfection, in a perfect breast;
|
So that his mind and body made an inn,
|
The one to lodge the other, both like framed
|
115 | For fair conditions, guests that soonest win
|
Applause; in generality, well famed,
|
If trim behavior, gestures mild, discreet
|
Endeavors, modest speech, beseeming mirth,
|
True friendship, active grace, persuasion sweet,
|
120 | Delightful love innated from his birth,
|
Acquaintance unfamiliar, carriage just,
|
Offenseless resolution, wished sobriety,
|
Clean-tempered moderation, steady trust,
|
Unburthened conscience, unfeigned piety;
|
125 | If these, or all of these, knit fast in one
|
Can merit praise, then justly may we say,
|
Not any from this frailer stage is gone
|
Whose name is like to live a longer day. . .
|
Though not in eminent courts or places great
|
130 | For popular concourse, yet in that soil
|
Where he enjoyed his birth, life, death, and seat
|
Which now sits mourning his untimely spoil.
|
And as much glory is it to be good
|
For private persons, in their private home,
|
135 | As those descended from illustrious blood
|
In public view of greatness, whence they come.
|
Though I, rewarded with some sadder taste
|
Of knowing shame, by feeling it have proved
|
My country's thankless misconstruction cast
|
140 | Upon my name and credit, both unloved
|
By some whose fortunes, sunk into the wane
|
Of plenty and desert, have strove to win
|
Justice by wrong, and sifted to embane
|
My reputation with a witless sin;
|
145 | Yet time, the father of unblushing truth,
|
May one day lay ope malice which hath crossed it,
|
And right the hopes of my endangered youth,
|
Purchasing credit in the place I lost it.
|
Even in which place the subject of the verse
|
150 | (Unhappy matter of a mourning style
|
Which now that subject's merits doth rehearse)
|
Had education and new being; while
|
By fair demeanor he had won repute
|
Amongst the all of all that lived there,
|
155 | For that his actions did so wholly suit
|
With worthiness, still memorable here.
|
The many hours till the day of doom
|
Will not consume his life and hapless end,
|
For should he lie obscured without a tomb,
|
160 | Time would to time his honesty commend;
|
Whiles parents to their children will make known,
|
And they to their posterity impart,
|
How such a man was sadly overthrown
|
By a hand guided by a cruel heart,
|
165 | Whereof as many as shall hear that sadness
|
Will blame the one's hard fate, the other's madness;
|
Whiles such as do recount that tale of woe,
|
Told by remembrance of the wisest heads,
|
Will in the end conclude the matter so,
|
170 | As they will all go weeping to their beds.
|
For when the world lies wintered in the storms
|
Of fearful consummation, and lays down
|
Th' unsteady change of his fantastic forms,
|
Expecting ever to be overthrown;
|
175 | When the proud height of much affected sin
|
Shall ripen to a head, and in that pride
|
End in the miseries it did begin
|
And fall amidst the glory of his tide;
|
Then in a book where every work is writ
|
180 | Shall this man's actions be revealed, to show
|
The gainful fruit of well-employed wit,
|
Which paid to heaven the debt that it did owe.
|
Here shall be reckoned up the constant faith,
|
Never untrue, where once he love professed;
|
185 | Which is a miracle in men, one saith,
|
Long sought though rarely found, and he is best
|
Who can make friendship, in those times of change,
|
Admired more for being firm than strange.
|
When those weak houses of our brittle flesh
|
190 | Shall ruined be by death, our grace and strength,
|
Youth, memory and shape that made us fresh
|
Cast down, and utterly decayed at length;
|
When all shall turn to dust from whence we came
|
And we low-leveled in a narrow grave,
|
195 | What can we leave behind us but a name,
|
Which, by a life well led, may honor have?
|
Such honor, O thou youth untimely lost,
|
Thou didst deserve and hast; for though thy soul
|
Hath took her flight to a diviner coast,
|
200 | Yet here on earth thy fame lives ever whole,
|
In every heart sealed up, in every tongue
|
Fit matter to discourse, no day prevented
|
That pities not thy sad and sudden wrong,
|
Of all alike beloved and lamented.
|
205 | And I here to thy memorable worth,
|
In this last act of friendship, sacrifice
|
My love to thee, which I could not set forth
|
In any other habit of disguise.
|
Although I could not learn, whiles yet thou wert,
|
210 | To speak the language of a servile breath,
|
My truth stole from my tongue into my heart,
|
Which shall not thence be sundered, but in death.
|
And I confess my love was too remiss
|
That had not made thee know how much I prized thee,
|
215 | But that mine error was, as yet it is,
|
To think love best in silence: for I sized thee
|
By what I would have been, not only ready
|
In telling I was thine, but being so,
|
By some effect to show it. He is steady
|
220 | Who seems less than he is in open show.
|
Since then I still reserved to try the worst
|
Which hardest fate and time thus can lay on me.
|
T' enlarge my thoughts was hindered at first,
|
While thou hadst life; I took this task upon me,
|
225 | To register with mine unhappy pen
|
Such duties as it owes to thy desert,
|
And set thee as a president to men,
|
And limn thee to the world but as thou wert. . .
|
Not hired, as heaven can witness in my soul,
|
230 | By vain conceit, to please such ones as know it,
|
Nor servile to be liked, free from control,
|
Which, pain to many men, I do not owe it.
|
But here I trust I have discharged now
|
(Fair lovely branch too soon cut off) to thee,
|
235 | My constant and irrefragable vow,
|
As, had it chanced, thou mightst have done to me. . .
|
But that no merit strong enough of mine
|
Had yielded store to thy well-abled quill
|
Whereby t' enroll my name, as this of thine,
|
240 | How s'ere enriched by thy plenteous skill.
|
Here, then, I offer up to memory
|
The value of my talent, precious man,
|
Whereby if thou live to posterity,
|
Though 't be not as I would, 'tis as I can:
|
245 | In minds from whence endeavor doth proceed,
|
A ready will is taken for the deed.
|
Yet ere I take my longest last farewell
|
From thee, fair mark of sorrow, let me frame
|
Some ampler work of thank, wherein to tell
|
250 | What more thou didst deserve than in thy name,
|
And free thee from the scandal of such senses
|
As in the rancor of unhappy spleen
|
Measure thy course of life, with false pretenses
|
Comparing by thy death what thou hast been.
|
255 | So in his mischiefs is the world accursed:
|
It picks out matter to inform the worst.
|
The willful blindness that hoodwinks the eyes
|
Of men enwrapped in an earthy veil
|
Makes them most ignorantly exercise
|
260 | And yield to humor when it doth assail,
|
Whereby the candle and the body's light
|
Darkens the inward eyesight of the mind,
|
Presuming still it sees, even in the night
|
Of that same ignorance which makes them blind.
|
265 | Hence conster they with corrupt commentaries,
|
Proceeding from a nature as corrupt,
|
The text of malice, which so often varies
|
As 'tis by seeming reason underpropped.
|
O, whither tends the lamentable spite
|
270 | Of this world's teenful apprehension,
|
Which understands all things amiss, whose light
|
Shines not amidst the dark of their dissension?
|
True 'tis, this man, whiles yet he was a man,
|
Soothed not the current of besotted fashion,
|
275 | Nor could disgest, as some loose mimics can,
|
An empty sound of overweening passion,
|
So much to be made servant to the base
|
And sensual aptness of disunioned vices,
|
To purchase commendation by disgrace,
|
280 | Whereto the world and heat of sin entices.
|
But in a safer contemplation,
|
Secure in what he knew, he ever chose
|
The ready way to commendation,
|
By shunning all invitements strange, of those
|
285 | Whose illness is, the necessary praise
|
Must wait upon their actions; only rare
|
In being rare in shame (which strives to raise
|
Their name by doing what they do not care),
|
As if the free commission of their ill
|
290 | Were even as boundless as their prompt desires;
|
Only like lords, like subjects to their will,
|
Which their fond dotage ever more admires.
|
He was not so: but in a serious awe,
|
Ruling the little ordered commonwealth
|
295 | Of his own self, with honor to the law
|
That gave peace to his bread, bread to his health;
|
Which ever he maintained in sweet content
|
And pleasurable rest, wherein he joyed
|
A monarchy of comfort's government,
|
300 | Never until his last to be destroyed.
|
For in the vineyard of heaven-favored learning
|
Where he was double-honored in degree,
|
His observation and discreet discerning
|
Had taught him in both fortunes to be free;
|
305 | Whence now retired home, to a home indeed
|
The home of his condition and estate,
|
He well provided 'gainst the hand of need,
|
Whence young men sometime grow unfortunate;
|
His disposition, by the bonds of unity,
|
310 | So fastened to his reason that it strove
|
With understanding's grave immunity
|
To purchase from all hearts a steady love;
|
Wherein not any one thing comprehends
|
Proportionable note of what he was,
|
315 | Than that he was so constant to his friends
|
As he would no occasion overpass
|
Which might make known his unaffected care,
|
In all respects of trial, to unlock
|
His bosom and his store, which did declare
|
320 | That Christ was his, and he was friendship's rock:
|
A rock of friendship figured in his name,
|
Foreshowing what he was, and what should be,
|
Most true presage; and he discharged the same
|
In every act of perfect amity.
|
325 | Though in the complemental phrase of words
|
He never was addicted to the vain
|
Of boast, such as the common breath affords;
|
He was in use most fast, in tongue most plain,
|
Nor amongst all those virtues that forever
|
330 | Adorned his reputation will be found
|
One greater than his faith, which did persever,
|
Where once it was protested, alway sound.
|
Hence sprung the deadly fuel that revived
|
The rage which wrought his end, for had he been
|
335 | Slacker in love, he had been longer lived
|
And not oppressed by wrath's unhappy sin. . .
|
By wrath's unhappy sin, which unadvised
|
Gave death for free good will, and wounds for love.
|
Pity it was that blood had not been prized
|
340 | At higher rate, and reason set above
|
Most unjust choler, which untimely drew
|
Destruction on itself; and most unjust,
|
Robbed virtue of a follower so true
|
As time can boast of, both for love and trust:
|
345 | So henceforth all (great glory to his blood)
|
Shall be but seconds to him, being good.
|
The wicked end their honor with their sin
|
In death, which only then the good begin.
|
Lo, here a lesson by experience taught
|
350 | For men whose pure simplicity hath drawn
|
Their trust to be betrayed by being caught
|
Within the snares of making truth a pawn;
|
Whiles it, not doubting whereinto it enters,
|
Without true proof and knowledge of a friend,
|
355 | Sincere in singleness of heart, adventers
|
To give fit cause, ere love begin to end:
|
His unfeigned friendship where it least was sought,
|
Him to a fatal timeless ruin brought;
|
Whereby the life that purity adorned
|
360 | With real merit, by this sudden end
|
Is in the mouth of some in manner scorned,
|
Made questionable, for they do intend,
|
According to the tenor of the saw
|
Mistook, if not observed (writ long ago
|
365 | When men were only led by reason's law),
|
That "Such as is the end, the life proves so."
|
Thus he, who to the universal lapse
|
Gave sweet redemption, offering up his blood
|
To conquer death by death, and loose the traps
|
370 | Of hell, even in the triumph that it stood:
|
He thus, for that his guiltless life was spilt
|
By death, which was made subject to the curse,
|
Might in like manner be reproved of guilt
|
In his pure life, for that his end was worse.
|
375 | But O far be it, our unholy lips
|
Should so profane the deity above
|
As thereby to ordain revenging whips
|
Against the day of judgment and of love.
|
The hand that lends us honor in our days
|
380 | May shorten when it please, and justly take
|
Our honor from us many sundry ways,
|
As best becomes that wisdom did us make.
|
The second brother, who was next begot
|
Of all that ever were begotten yet,
|
385 | Was by a hand in vengeance rude and hot
|
Sent innocent to be in heaven set.
|
Whose fame the angels in melodious choirs
|
Still witness to the world. Then why should he,
|
Well-profited in excellent desires,
|
390 | Be more rebuked, who had like destiny?
|
Those saints before the everlasting throne
|
Who sit with crowns of glory on their heads,
|
Washed white in blood, from earth hence have not gone
|
All to their joys in quiet on their beds,
|
395 | But tasted of the sour-bitter scourge
|
Of torture and affliction ere they gained
|
Those blessings which their sufferance did urge,
|
Whereby the grace fore-promised they attained.
|
Let then the false suggestions of the froward,
|
400 | Building large castles in the empty air,
|
By suppositions fond and thoughts untoward
|
(Issues of discontent and sick despair)
|
Rebound gross arguments upon their heart
|
That may disprove their malice, and confound
|
405 | Uncivil loose opinions which insert
|
Their souls into the roll that doth unsound
|
Betraying policies, and show their brains,
|
Unto their shame, ridiculous; whose scope
|
Is envy, whose endeavors fruitless pains,
|
410 | In nothing surely prosperous, but hope. . .
|
And that same hope, so lame, so unprevailing,
|
It buries self-conceit in weak opinion;
|
Which being crossed, gives matter of bewailing
|
Their vain designs, on whom want hath dominion.
|
415 | Such, and of such condition, may devise
|
Which way to wound with defamation's spirit
|
(Close-lurking whisper's hidden forgeries)
|
His taintless goodness, his desertful merit.
|
But whiles the minds of men can judge sincerely,
|
420 | Upon assured knowledge, his repute
|
And estimation shall be rumored clearly
|
In equal worth--time shall to time renew 't.
|
The grave, that in his ever-empty womb
|
Forever closes up the unrespected,
|
425 | Who when they die, die all, shall not entomb
|
His pleading best perfections as neglected.
|
They to his notice in succeeding years
|
Shall speak for him when he shall lie below;
|
When nothing but his memory appears
|
430 | Of what he was, then shall his virtues grow.
|
His being but a private man in rank
|
(And yet not ranked beneath a gentleman)
|
Shall not abridge the commendable thank
|
Which wise posterity shall give him then;
|
435 | For nature, and his therein happy fate.
|
Ordained that by his quality of mind
|
T' ennoble that best part, although his state
|
Were to a lower blessedness confined.
|
Blood, pomp, state, honor, glory and command,
|
440 | Without fit ornaments of disposition,
|
Are in themselves but heathenish and profaned,
|
And much more peaceful is a mean condition
|
Which, underneath the roof of safe content,
|
Feeds on the bread of rest, and takes delight
|
445 | To look upon the labors it hath spent
|
For its own sustenance, both day and night;
|
Whiles others, plotting which way to be great,
|
How to augment their portion and ambition,
|
Do toil their giddy brains, and ever sweat
|
450 | For popular applause and power's commission.
|
But one in honors, like a seeled dove
|
Whose inward eyes are dimmed with dignity,
|
Does think most safety doth remain above,
|
And seeks to be secure by mounting high:
|
455 | Whence, when he falls, who did erewhile aspire,
|
Falls deeper down, for that he climbed higher.
|
Now men who in lower region live
|
Exempt from danger of authority
|
Have fittest times in reason's rules to thrive,
|
460 | Not vexed with envy of priority,
|
And those are much more noble in the mind
|
Than many that have nobleness by kind.
|
Birth, blood, and ancestors, are none of ours,
|
Nor can we make a proper challenge to them
|
465 | But virtues and perfections in our powers
|
Proceed most truly from us, if we do them.
|
Respective titles or a gracious style,
|
With all what men in eminence possess,
|
Are, without ornaments to praise them, vile:
|
470 | The beauty of the mind is nobleness.
|
And such as have that beauty, well deserve
|
Eternal characters, that after death
|
Remembrance of their worth we may preserve,
|
So that their glory die not with their breath.
|
475 | Else what avails it in a goodly strife
|
Upon this face of earth here to contend,
|
The good t' exceed the wicked in their life,
|
Should both be like obscured in their end?
|
Until which end, there is none rightly can
|
480 | Be termed happy, since the happiness
|
Depends upon the goodness of the man,
|
Which afterwards his praises will express.
|
Look hither then, you that enjoy the youth
|
Of your best days, and see how unexpected
|
485 | Death can betray your jollity to ruth
|
When death you think is least to be respected!
|
The person of this model here set out
|
Had all that youth and happy days could give him,
|
Yet could not all-encompass him about
|
490 | Against th' assault of death, who to relieve him
|
Strook home but to the frail and mortal parts
|
Of his humanity, but could not touch
|
His flourishing and fair long-lived deserts,
|
Above fate's reach, his singleness was such.
|
495 | So that he dies but once, but doubly lives,
|
Once in his proper self, then in his name;
|
Predestinated time, who all deprives,
|
Could never yet deprive him of the same.
|
And had the genius which attended on him
|
500 | Been possibilited to keep him safe
|
Against the rigor that hath overgone him,
|
He had been to the public use a staff,
|
Leading by his example in the path
|
Which guides to doing well, wherein so few
|
505 | The proneness of this age to error hath
|
Informed rightly in the courses true.
|
As then the loss of one, whose inclination
|
Stove to win love in general, is sad,
|
So specially his friends, in soft compassion
|
510 | Do feel the greatest loss they could have had.
|
Amongst them all, she who those nine of years
|
Lived fellow to his counsels and his bed
|
Hath the most share in loss; for I in hers
|
Feel what distemperature this chance hath bred.
|
515 | The chaste embracements of conjugal love,
|
Who in a mutual harmony consent,
|
Are so impatient of a strange remove
|
As meager death itself seems to lament,
|
And weep upon those cheeks which nature framed
|
520 | To be delightful orbs in whom the force
|
Of lively sweetness plays, so that ashamed
|
Death often pities his unkind divorce.
|
Such was the separation here constrained
|
(Well-worthy to be termed a rudeness rather),
|
525 | For in his life his love was so unfeigned
|
As he was both an husband and a father. . .
|
The one in firm affection and the other
|
In careful providence, which ever strove
|
With joint assistance to grace one another
|
530 | With every helpful furtherance of love.
|
But since the sum of all that can be said
|
Can be but said that "He was good" (which wholly
|
Includes all excellence can be displayed
|
In praise of virtue and reproach of folly).
|
535 | His due deserts, this sentence on him gives,
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"He died in life, yet in his death he lives."
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Now runs the method of this doleful song
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In accents brief to thee, O thou deceased!
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To whom those pains do only all belong
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540 | As witnesses I did not love thee least.
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For could my worthless brain find out but how
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To raise thee from the sepulcher of dust,
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Undoubtedly thou shouldst have partage now
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Of life with me, and heaven be counted just
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545 | If to a supplicating soul it would
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Give life anew, by giving life again
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Where life is missed; whereby discomfort should
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Right his old griefs, and former joys retain
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Which now with thee are leaped into thy tomb
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550 | And buried in that hollow vault of woe,
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Expecting yet a more severer doom
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Than time's strict flinty hand will let 'em know.
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And now if I have leveled mine account
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And reckoned up in a true measured score
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555 | Those perfect graces which were ever wont
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To wait on thee alive, I ask no more
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(But shall hereafter in a poor content
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Immure those imputations I sustain,
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Learning my days of youth so to prevent
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560 | As not to be cast down by them again);
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Only those hopes which fate denies to grant
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In full possession to a captive heart
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Who, if it were in plenty, still would want
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Before it may enjoy his better part:
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565 | From which detained, and banished in th' exile
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Of dim misfortune, has none other prop
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Whereon to lean and rest itself the while
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But the weak comfort of the hapless, "hope."
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And hope must in despite of fearful change
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570 | Play in the strongest closet of my breast,
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Although perhaps I ignorantly range
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And court opinion in my deep'st unrest.
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But whether doth the stream of my mischance
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Drive me beyond myself, fast friend, soon lost,
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575 | Long may thy worthiness thy name advance
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Amongst the virtuous and deserving most,
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Who herein hast forever happy proved:
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In life thou lived'st, in death thou died'st beloved.
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