TIs not a Pyramide of marble stone, Though high as our ambition; 'Tis not a tombe cut out in brasse; which can Give life to th' ashes of a man: But verses only; they shall fresh appeare Whil'st there are men to read, or heare. When tyme shall make the lasting brasse decay, And eate the Pyramide away, Turning that monument wherein men trust Their names, to what it keepes, poore dust. Then, shall the Epitaph remayne, and bee New graven in Eternity. Poets by death are conquered, but the wit Of Poets triumph over it. What cannot verse? when Thracian Orpheus tooke His Lyre, and gently on it strooke; The learned stones came dancing all along, And kept time to the charming song. With artificiall pace the Warlike Pine, Th' Elme, and his wife the Ivy twine, With all the better trees, -- which er'st had stood Vnmou'd, -- forsooke their native wood. The Lawrell to the Poet's hand did bow, Craving the honour of his brow. And every loving arme embrac'd, and made With their officious leaves a shade. The beasts too, strove his auditors to bee Forgetting their old Tyranny. The fearefull Hart next to the Lion came, And Wolfe was Shepheard to the Lambe. Nightingales, harmelesse Syrens of the ayre, And Muses of the place, were there; Who when their little windpipes they had found Vnequall to so strange a sound, O'recome by art and griefe they did expire, And fell upon the conquering Lyre. Happy, o happy they, whose tombe might bee, Mausolus, envied by thee! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HENRY PURCELL by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS HESPERIA by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE TO A FRIEND WHOSE WORK HAS COME TO NOTHING by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS THE STORM by ALCAEUS OF MYTILENE A NEW HAMPSHIRE BOY by MORRIS GILBERT BISHOP A PIPE OF TOBACCO (MR. POPE'S STYLE IMITATED) by ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE LINES TO SIR JOHN WHITEFORD, ON DEATH OF EARL OF GLENCAIRN by ROBERT BURNS |