Yet take these tears, mortality's relief,
And till we share your joys, forgive our grief:
These little rites, a stone, a verse, receive;
'Tis all a father, all a friend can give!
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1723.
KNELLER, by Heaven and not a master taught,
Whose art was Nature, and whose pictures Thought;
Now for two ages having snatch'd from fate
Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great,
Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poets' lays,
Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.
Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works; and, dying, fears herself may die.
ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT,
ONLY SON OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HARCOURT; AT THE CHURCH
OF STANTON-HARCOURT, IN OXFORDSHIRE, 1720.
To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near,
Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear:
Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.
How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what HARCOURT cannot speak.
Oh let thy once-loved friend inscribe thy stone,
And, with a father's sorrows, mix his own!
ON EDMUND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM,
WHO DIED IN THE NINETEENTH YEAR OF HIS AGE, 1735.
Ir modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd,
And every opening virtue blooming round,
Could save a parent's justest pride from fate,
Or add one patriot to a sinking state;
This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear,
Or sadly told, how many hopes lie here!
The living virtue now had shone approved,
The senate heard him, and his country loved.
Yet softer honours and less noisy fame
Attend the shade of gentle BUCKINGHAM:
In whom a race, for courage famed and art,
Ends in a milder merit of the heart;
And chiefs or sages long to Britain given,
Pays the last tribute of a saint to heaven.
FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
HEROES and KINGS! your distance keep:
In peace let one poor poet sleep,
Who never flatter'd folks like you:
Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.
UNDER this marble, or under this sill,
Or under this turf, or e'en what they will;
Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead,
Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head,
Lies one who ne'er cared, and still cares not a pin
What they said, or may say, of the mortal witliin:
But, who living and dying, serene still and free,
Trusts in GOD, that as well as he was, he shall be.
ON MR ELIJAH FENTON,
AT EASTHAMSTED, IN BIRKS, 1730.
THIS modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say,-Here lies an honest man:
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,
Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and great:
Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease,
Content with science in the vale of peace.
Calmly he look'd on either life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear;
From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfied,
Thank'd Heaver that he had lived, and that he died.
ON MR GAY,
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1722.
Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit, a man; simplicity, a child:
With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age.
Above temptation, in a low estate,
And uncorrupted even among the great:
A safe companion, and an easy friend,
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.
These are thy honours! not that here thy bust
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust;
But that the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms-Here lies GAY.
INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON,
ISAACUS NEWTONUS:
Quem Immortalem
Testantur Tempus, Natura, Cœlum:
Mortalem
Hoc marmor fatetur.
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.
WHO DIED IN EXILE AT PARIS, 1732, (HIS ONLY DAUGHTER HAVING
EXPIRED IN HIS ARMS IMMEDIATELY AFTER SHE ARRIVED IN FRANCE TO SEE HIM.)
YES, we have lived-one pang, and then we part!
May Heaven, dear father? now have all thy heart.
Yet, ah! how once we loved, remember still,
Till you are dust like me.
Then mix this dust with thine-O spotless ghost!
Oh more than fortune, friends, or country lost!
Is there on earth one care, one wish beside?
Yes-SAVE MY COUNTRY,HEAVEN,
PROLOGUE TO MR ADDISON'S TRAGEDY OF CATO.
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart,
To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
The hero's glory or the virgin's love;
In pitying love, we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deserves its woe.
Here tears shall flow from a more generous cause,
Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws:
He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confess'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveys,-
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Even when proud Cæsar, 'midst triumphal cars,
The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
Shew'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state;
As her dead father's reverend image pass'd,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercast;
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