The Funerals of the Honourable, my best friend and Kinfman, GEORGE TALBOT Efq;
OE ftop the swift-wing'd moments in their flight To their yet unknowne coast, goe hinder night From its approach on day, and force day rife From the faire East of some bright beauties eyes: Else vaunt not the proud miracle of verse. It hath no powre, for mine from his blacke herfe Redeemes not Talbot, who could as the breath Of Winter, coffin'd lyes; filent as Death, Stealing on th' Anch'rit, who even wants an eare To breath into his foft expiring prayer. For had thy life beene by thy virtues fpun Out to a length, thou hadft out-liv'd the Sunne And clof'd the world's great eye: or were not all Our wonders fiction, from thy funerall Thou hadst received new life, and liv'd to be The conqueror o'er Death, infpir'd by me. But all we poets glory in is vaine
And empty triumph: Art cannot regaine One poore houre loft, nor reskew a small flye By a foole's finger destinate to dye. Live then in thy true life (great soule) for set At liberty by Death thou oweft no debt
T'exacting Nature: live, freed from the sport Of time and fortune in yond' starry court A glorious potentate, while we below But fashion wayes to mitigate our woe. We follow campes, and to our hopes propose Th' infulting victor; not remembring those Difmemberd trunkes who gave him victory By a loath'd fate: we covetous merchants be And to our aymes pretend treasure and fway, Forgetfull of the treafons of the fea, The shootings of a wounded confcience We patiently fuftaine to ferve our fence With a fhort pleafure.; fo we empire gaine And rule the fate of buifneffe, the sad paine Of action we contemne, and the affright Which with pale vifionis ftill attends our night. Our joyes falfe apparitions, but our feares Are certain prophecies, and till our eares Reach that celeftiall mufique, which thine now So cheerefully receive, we must allow No comfort to our griefes: from which to be Exempted, is in death to follow thee.
Caftara. 1640. Lond. Ed. by W. Habington.
On two Children dying of one difeafe, and buried in one grave.
BROUGHT forth in forrow, 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 dayes were few They scarcely finne, but never forrow knew: So that they well might boast, they carry'd hence What riper ages lofe, their innocence,
You pretty loffes, that revive the fate Which in your Mother Death did antedate, O let my high-fwoln grief distill on you The faddeft drops of a Parentall dew: You afk no other dower then what my eyes Lay out on your untimely exequies:
When once I have discharg'd that mournfull skore, Heav'n hath decreed you ne're fhall-coft ine more, Since you releafe and quit my borrow'd truft,
By taking this inheritance of duft.
To the Memory of BEN JONSON, Laureat.
FATHER of Poets, though thine own great day
Struck from thyself, fcorns that a weaker ray Should twine in luftre with it, yet my flame Kindled from thine, flies upward towards thy name: For in the acclamation of the lefs
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 luftre's fuch, he makes it feen Better to fome that draws the veil between.
And what can more be hop'd, fince that divine Free filling spirit takes its flight with thine ? Men may have fury, but no raptures now, Like Witches charm, yet not know whence, nor how, And through distemper grown not strong, but fierce, Instead of writing, only rave in verfe;
Which when by thy laws judg'd, 'twill be confest 'Twas not to be infpir'd, but be poffeft.
Where fhall we find a Mufe like thine, that can
So well prefent, and fhew man unto man, That each one finds his twin, and thinks thy art Extends not to the geftures, but the heart? Where one fo fhewing life to life, that we
Think thou taught'st custome, and not custome thee;
Manners were themes, and to thy fcenes ftill flow In the fame ftream, and are their comments now; These times thus living o'er thy models, we Think them not so much Wit, as Prophecie; And though we know the character, nay and swear
A Sybil's finger hath been bufie there.
Things common thou speak'st proper, which though known For publike, stamp'd by Thee, grow thence thine own; Thy thought's fo ordered, so express'd, that we Conclude that thou didst not discourse, but fee: Language fo master'd that thy numerous feet Laden with genuine words do alwaies meet Each in his art, nothing unfit doth fall, Shewing the Poet, like the wife men, all Thine equall skill thus wrefting nothing, made Thy pen seem not so much to write, as trade.
That life, that Venus of all things, which we Conceive or fhew, proportion'd Decency, Is not found scatter'd in thee here or there, But like the foul is wholly every where ; No strange perplexed maze doth pass for plot, Thou alwaies doft unty, not cut the knot: Thy labyrinth's doors are open'd by one thread, Which tyes and runs through all that's done or faid ; No Power comes down with learned hat or rod, Wit onely and Contrivance is thy God.
'Tis eafie to gild gold, there's fmall skill spent Where ev'n the first rude mass is ornament; Thy Mufe took harder metals, purg'd and boyl'd, Labour'd and try'd, heated and beat, and toyl'd, Sifted the drofs, fyl'd roughness, then gave dress, Vexing rude fubjects into comeliness;
Be it thy glory then that we may say,
Thou runeft where the foot was hind'red by the way. Nor doft thou powre out, but difpence thy vein, Skill'd when to spare, and when to entertain;
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