Must noble Hastings immaturely die,
The honour of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding sheet?
Must virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?
Is death, sin's wages, grace's now? shall art Make us more learned, only to depart?
If merit be disease; if virtue, death;
To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem Labour a crime? study self-murder deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully.
Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise,
Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise:
Than whom great Alexander may seem less,
Who conquered men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations speak; his tongue might be Interpreter to Greece,
France,
Italy.
His native soil was the four parts o' the earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apostle; and,—with reverence may I speak 't,—inspired with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him, a child, what men in vain Oft strive, by art though furthered, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his sublime soul Did move on virtue's and on learning's pole;
Whose regular motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did shew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, filled up all the parts.
Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear Scattered in others, all, as in their sphere,
Were fixed, and conglobate in's soul, and thence Shone through his body, with sweet influence;
Letting their glories so on each limb fall,
The whole frame rendered was celestial.
Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make,
If thou this hero's altitude can'st take:
But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus astronomical.
Lived Tycho now, struck with this ray which shone More bright i' the morn, than others beam at noon,
He'd take his astrolabe, and seek out here What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere.
Replenished then with such rare gifts as these,
Where was room left for such a foul disease?
The nation's sin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds Our day-spring in so sad benighting clouds.
Heaven would no longer trust its pledge, but thus Recalled it,—rapt its Ganymede from us.
Was there no milder way but the small-pox,
The very filthiness of Pandora's box?
So many spots, like næves, our Venus soil?
One jewel set off with so many a foil;
Blisters with pride swelled, which through's flesh did sprout Like rosebuds, stuck i' the lily-skin about.
Each little pimple had a tear in it,
To wail the fault its rising did commit;
Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife,
Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
The cabinet of a richer soul within?
No comet need foretell his change drew on,
Whose corpse might seem a constellation.
Oh had he died of old, how great a strife Had been, who from his death should draw their life;
Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er Seneca,
Cato,
Numa,
Cæsar, were!
Learned, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this An universal metempsychosis.
Must all these aged sires in one funeral Expire? all die in one so young, so small?
Who, had he lived his life out, his great fame Had swoln 'bove any Greek or Roman name.
But hasty winter, with one blast, hath brought The hopes of autumn, summer, spring, to nought.
Thus fades the oak i' the sprig, i' the blade the corn;
Thus without young, this Phœnix dies, newborn.
Must then old three-legged grey-beards with their gout,
Catarrhs, rheums, aches, live three ages out?
Time's offals, only fit for the hospital!
Or to hang an antiquary's rooms withal!
Must drunkards, lechers, spent with sinning, live With such helps as broths, possets, physic give?
None live, but such as should die? shall we meet With none but ghostly fathers in the street?
Grief makes me rail, sorrow will force its way,
And showers of tears tempestuous sighs best lay.
The tongue may fail; but overflowing eyes Will weep out lasting streams of elegies.
But thou,
O virgin-widow, left alone,
Now thy beloved, heaven-ravished spouse is gone,
Whose skilful sire in vain strove to apply Med'cines, when thy balm was no remedy;
With greater than Platonic love,
O wed His soul, though not his body, to thy bed:
Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth The ideas of his virtue, knowledge, worth;
Transcribe the original in new copies; give Hastings o' the better part: so shall he live In's nobler half; and the great grandsire be Of an heroic divine progeny:
An issue which to eternity shall last,
Yet but the irradiations which he cast.
Erect no mausoleums; for his best Monument is his spouse's marble breast.
