The Muses' sons no knee to Mammon bend; No smiles from Mammon bless the Muses' train: "Tis seldom Fortune's rays with Fancy's blend; Ill suit the arts of song with arts of gain! Each pulse for costly transport beating high; Nor knowing on Distress to close thy door; Won by each siren note and plaintive sigh; Howe'er it swell'd, full soon shall melt thy store! Then should not forward eager Friendship seek Thy coy despair, resolved thine head to raise, Fast fades thine eye, and swiftly wastes thy cheek, And Woe's last friend her beckon soon obeys! Silent thou lay'st thee down, resign'd to die; Aid, but of Death, too stately to implore: No hand of thine, proud sufferer, e'er shall try Want's faint and fearful knock at Grandeur's door. If ills like these, from thy warm heedless youth, With watchful shield, thy guardian Genius ward; Thy social tenderness, thy social truth, Ah! who from social agonies shall guard? All pale, I view thee, hanging o'er the bed, Where he thou long hast valued breathless lies! To wake the dust thou wilt not know is dead, Thy frantic grief with wildest effort tries! The venom'd tooth that honied lips conceal, Which wounds each breast that takes the serpent in, Whose cruel bite even torpid bosoms feel, Oh! the keen torment it shall dart through thine! But chiefly shall thy throbbing bosom prove If she, whose powerful charms have won thy love, Thy mistress, kind in vain and vainly true, And with relentless hate your loves pursue; Then, nor shall various scene, nor lonely sighs, Nor Friendship's tongue, nor Wit's nor Wisdom's page, Nor all the charm the heavenly Muse supplies, Though stern Adversity around thee throw Or for death-thirsty lips the draught prepare. FAWCETT. ELEGANT EXTRACTS. PART VIII. Monodies, Funereal Elegies, and Epitaphs. LYCIDAS. In this Monody the author bewails a learned friend unfortu nately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas, 1637 and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height. YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude; Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year: Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear Compels me to disturb your season due; * Edward King, Esq. the son of Sir John King, knight, secretary for Ireland. He was sailing from Chester to Ireland, on a visit to his friends in that country, when in calm weather, not far from the English coast, the ship struck upon a rock, and suddenly sunk to the bottom with all that were on board, August 10, 1637. Mr. King was a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. |