| IT is not growing like a tree | |
| In bulk, doth make man better be; | |
| Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, | |
| To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: | |
| A lily of a day | 5 |
| Is fairer far in May, | |
| Although it fall and die that night; | |
| It was the plant and flower of light. | |
| In small proportions we just beauties see; | |
| And in short measures, life may perfect be. | 10 |
| |
| Call, noble Lucius, then for wine, | |
| And let thy looks with gladness shine: | |
| Accept this garland, plant it on thy head, | |
| And think—nay, know—thy Morison 's not dead. | |
| He leap'd the present age, | 15 |
| Possest with holy rage | |
| To see that bright eternal Day | |
| Of which we Priests and Poets say | |
| Such truths as we expect for happy men; | |
| And there he lives with memory—and Ben | 20 |
| |
| Jonson: who sung this of him, ere he went | |
| Himself to rest, | |
| Or tast a part of that full joy he meant | |
| To have exprest | |
| In this bright Asterism | 25 |
| Where it were friendship's schism— | |
| Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry— | |
| To separate these twy | |
| Lights, the Dioscuri, | |
| And keep the one half from his Harry. | 30 |
| But fate doth so alternate the design, | |
| Whilst that in Heav'n, this light on earth must shine. | |
| |
| And shine as you exalted are! | |
| Two names of friendship, but one star: | |
| Of hearts the union: and those not by chance | 35 |
| Made, or indenture, or leased out to advance | |
| The profits for a time. | |
| No pleasures vain did chime | |
| Of rimes or riots at your feasts, | |
| Orgies of drink or feign'd protests; | 40 |
| But simple love of greatness and of good, | |
| That knits brave minds and manners more than blood. | |
| |
| This made you first to know the Why | |
| You liked, then after, to apply | |
| That liking, and approach so one the t'other | 45 |
| Till either grew a portion of the other: | |
| Each stylèd by his end | |
| The copy of his friend. | |
| You lived to be the great surnames | |
| And titles by which all made claims | 50 |
| Unto the Virtue—nothing perfect done | |
| But as a CARY or a MORISON. | |
| |
| And such the force the fair example had | |
| As they that saw | |
| The good, and durst not practise it, were glad | 55 |
| That such a law | |
| Was left yet to mankind, | |
| Where they might read and find | |
| FRIENDSHIP indeed was written, not in words, | |
| And with the heart, not pen, | 60 |
| Of two so early men, | |
| Whose lines her rules were and records: | |
| Who, ere the first down bloomèd on the chin, | |
| Had sow'd these fruits, and got the harvest in. | |
