| |
| HOW to thy sacred memory shall I bring, | |
| Worthy thy fame, a grateful offering? | |
| I, who by toils of sickness am become | |
| Almost as near as thou art to a tomb, | |
| While every soft and every tender strain | 5 |
| Is ruffled and ill-natured grown with pain? | |
| But at thy name my languished muse revives, | |
| And a new spark in the dull ashes strives; | |
| I hear thy tuneful verse, thy song divine, | |
| And am inspired by every charming line. | 10 |
| But oh! | |
| What inspiration, at the second hand, | |
| Can an immortal elegy command? | |
| Unless, like pious offerings, mine should be | |
| Made sacred, being consecrate to thee. | 15 |
| |
| Eternal as thy own almighty verse, | |
| Should be those trophies that adorn thy hearse, | |
| The thought illustrious and the fancy young, | |
| The wit sublime, the judgment fine and strong, | |
| Soft as thy notes to Sacharissa sung; | 20 |
| Whilst mine, like transitory flowers, decay, | |
| That come to deck thy tomb a short-lived day, | |
| Such tributes are, like tenures, only fit | |
| To show from whom we hold our right to wit. | |
| |
| Long did the untuned world in ignorance stray, | 25 |
| Producing nothing that was great and gay, | |
| Till taught by thee the true poetic way; | |
| Rough were the tracks before, dull and obscure, | |
| Nor pleasure nor instruction could procure; | |
| Their thoughtless labours could no passion move, | 30 |
| Sure, in that age, the poets knew not love. | |
| That charming god, like apparitions, then, | |
| Was only talked on, but ne’er seen by men. | |
| Darkness was o’er the Muses’ land displayed, | |
| And even the chosen tribe unguided strayed, | 35 |
| Till, by thee rescued from the Egyptian night, | |
| They now look up and view the god of light, | |
| That taught them how to love, and how to write. | |
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