John Dryden (1631–1700). The Poems of John Dryden. 1913. Elegies and Epitaphs Epitaph on Sir Palmes Fairborne’s Tomb,
YE 1 Sacred Relicks which your Marble keep, Here, undisturb’d by Wars, in quiet sleep: Discharge the trust, which (when it was below) Fairborne’s undaunted 2 soul did undergo:And be the Towns Palladium from the foe. 5 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 imbrew: From thence returning with deserv’d Applause, 10 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 15 Still nearer heaven, his Vertues 3 shone more bright, Like rising flames expanding in their height; The Martyrs Glory Crown’d the Soldier’s Fight. More bravely Brittish General never fell, Nor General’s death was e’re reveng’d so well; 20 Which his pleas’d Eyes beheld before their close, Follow’d by thousand Victims of his Foes. To his lamented loss for time 4 to come, His pious Widow consecrates this Tomb.
Note 1. Miscellanies of 1693. [back ]Note 2. This was the word in the first sketch on the stone in Westminster Abbey, but when the letters were cut it was changed to disdaunted. The stone has some mistakes, Balladium for Palladium and others. [back ]Note 3. Some edd. wrongly give Virtue. [back ]Note 4. Some edd. wrongly give times. [back ]
