The power of harmony too well they knew ; He long ere this had tuned their jarring sphere, And left no hell below.
The heavenly choir, who heard his notes from high,
Let down the scale of music from the sky:
They handed him along,
And all the way he taught, and all the way they sung.
Ye brethren of the lyre, and tuneful voice,
Lament his lot; but at your own rejoice:
Now live secure, and linger out your days;
The gods are pleased alone with Purcell's lays,
Nor know to mend their choice.
FAIR, kind, and true; a treasure each, alone,
A wife, a mistress, and a friend, in one,
Rest in this tomb, raised at thy husband's cost,
Here sadly summing what he had and lost.
Come, Virgins, ere in equal bands ye join,
Come first, and offer at her sacred shrine;
Pray but for half the virtues of this wife,
Compound for all the rest with longer life;
And wish your vows, like her's, may be return'd,
So loved when living, and when dead so mourn'd.
SIR PALMES FAIRBONE'S TOMB,
Sacred to the immortal memory of Sir PALMES FAIRBONE, Knight, Governor of Tangier; in execution of which command he was mortally wounded by a shot from the Moors, then besieging the town, in the forty-sixth year of his age, October 24, 1680.
YE sacred relics, which your marble keep,
Here, undisturb'd by wars, in quiet sleep:
Discharge the trust, which, when it was below,
Fairbone's undaunted soul did undergo,
And be the town's Palladium from the foe.
Alive and dead these walls he will defend:
Great actions great examples must attend.
The Candian siege his early valour knew,
Where Turkish blood did his young hands imbrue.
From thence returning with deserved applause,
Against the Moors his well-flesh'd sword he draws;
The same the courage, and the same the cause.
His youth and age, his life and death combine,
As in some great and regular design,
All of a piece throughout, and all divine.
Still nearer Heaven his virtues shone more bright,
Like rising flames, expanding in their height;
The martyr's glory crown'd the soldier's fight.
More bravely British general never fell,
Nor general's death was e'er revenged so well;
Which his pleased eyes beheld before their close,
Follow'd by thousand victims of his foes.
To his lamented loss for time to come
His pious widow consecrates this tomb.
BEFORE HIS PARADISE LOST.
THREE poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd;
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go;
To make a third she join'd the former two.
MONUMENT OF MARY FRAMPTON,
A FAIR MAIDEN LADY, WHO DIED AT BATH, AND IS THERE INTERred. Ob. sept. 6, 1698.
BELOW this marble monument is laid
All that Heaven wants of this celestial maid;
Preserve, O sacred tomb! thy trust consign'd;
The mould was made on purpose for the mind,
And she would lose, if, at the latter day,
One atom could be mix'd of other clay.
Such were the features of her heavenly face,
Her limbs were form'd with such harmonious grace,
So faultless was the frame, as if the whole
Had been an emanation of the soul,
Which her own inward symmetry reveal'd,
And like a picture shone, in glass anneal'd,
Or like the sun eclipsed, with shaded light,
Too piercing, else, to be sustain❜d by sight;
Each thought was visible that roll'd within,
As through a crystal case the figured hours are seen:
And Heaven did this transparent veil provide,
Because she had no guilty thought to hide.
All white, a virgin-saint, she sought the skies;
For marriage, though it sullies not, it dies.
High though her wit, yet humble was her mind;
As if she could not, or she would not find
How much her worth transcended all her kind.
Yet she had learn'd so much of Heaven below,
That when arrived, she scarce had more to know;
But only to refresh the former hint,
And read her Maker in a fairer print:
So pious, as she had no time to spare
For human thoughts, but was confined to prayer:
Yet in such charities she pass'd the day,
'Twas wondrous how she found an hour to pray.
A soul so calm, it knew not ebbs or flows,
Which passion could but curl, not discompose.
A female softness, with a manly mind;
A daughter duteous, and a sister kind;
In sickness patient, and in death resign'd.
OF BURNINGHAM IN NORFOLK.
So fair, so young, so innocent, so sweet,
So ripe a judgment, and so rare a wit,
Require at least an age in one to meet.
In her they met; but long they could not stay,
"Twas gold too fine to mix, without allay.
Heaven's image was in her so well express'd,
Her very sight upbraided all the rest;
Too justly ravish'd from an age like this,
Now she is gone, the world is of a piece.
MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER, OB, 1674.
He who in impious times undaunted stood,
And midst rebellion durst be just and good,
Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more
Confirm'd the cause for which he fought before,
Rests here rewarded by a heavenly prince;
For what his earthly could not recompense.
Pray, Reader, that such times no more appear:
Or, if they happen, learn true honour here,
Ask of this age's faith and loyalty,
Which, to preserve them, Heaven confined in thee;
Few subjects could a king like thine deserve,
And fewer such a king so well could serve.
Bless'd king, bless'd subject, whose exalted state
By sufferings rose, and gave the law to fate.
Such souls are rare, but mighty patterns given
To earth, and meant for ornament to Heaven.
|