Or make another my own griefs bemoan; Each man that lives (according to his power) I like the pleasing cadence of a line Struck by the concert of the sacred Nine. With quickest speed to win the greatest prize. And time may be so kind, in these weak lines To keep my name enroll'd, past his, that shines Since verse preserves, when stone and brass deceives. To those full days which others Muses give, I find nor hawk, nor hound, nor other thing, And that without expense, when others oft ELEGIES AND EPITAPHS. ON THE DEATH OF MRS. ELIZABETH FILMER, AN ELEGIACAL EPITAPH. You that shall live awhile before Old Time tires, and is no more; Repented what it thus had giv'n; For finding equal happy man, heav'n Th' impatient pow'rs snatch'd it again; She making her celestial bed In her warm alabaster lay As cold as in this house of clay; 41 Nor were the rooms unfit to feast For which the clearer was not known, Incloisters here this narrow floor That possess'd all hearts before. Bless'd and bewail'd in death and birth! The smiles and tears of heav'n and earth! Virgins at each step are afeard, Filmer is shot by which they steer'd, And though you find this fair-built tomb Yet her saint-like name shall shine A living glory to this shrine, And her eternal fame be read, When ali, but very Virtue's dead*. Lucasta, &c. by Richard Lovelace, * And her eternal fame be read, When all but very Virtue's dead.] Somewhat in the manner of Collins: Belov'd till life can charm no more; Dirge in Cymbeline. ЕРІТАРН ON THE LADY MARY VILLIERS. THE Lady Mary Villiers lies Under this stone; with weeping eyes * T. Carew's Poems, p. 90, * I have always considered this Epitaph as Carew's masterpiece. The subject of it may possibly be the same person, to whose nuptials with Lord Charles Herbert, Davenant has inscribed some verses. P. 238, fol. edit. |