A Pindaric Ode
140 lines✦
HE TURNBrave infant of Saguntum, clearThy coming forth in that great year,When the prodigious Hannibal did crownHis rage with razing your immortal town.Thou looking then about,Ere thou wert half got out,Wise child, didst hastily return,And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.How summ'd a circle didst thou leave mankindOf deepest lore, could we the centre find! THE COUNTER-TURN Did wiser nature draw thee back,From out the horror of that sack;Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,Lay trampled on? The deeds of death and nightUrg'd, hurried forth, and hurl'dUpon th' affrighted world;Sword, fire and famine with fell fury met,And all on utmost ruin set:As, could they but life's miseries foresee,No doubt all infants would return like thee. THE STAND For what is life, if measur'd by the space,Not by the act?Or masked man, if valu'd by his face,Above his fact?Here's one outliv'd his peersAnd told forth fourscore years:He vexed time, and busied the whole state;Troubled both foes and friends;But ever to no ends:What did this stirrer but die late?How well at twenty had he fall'n or stood!For three of his four score he did no good. THE TURN He enter'd well, by virtuous partsGot up, and thriv'd with honest arts;He purchas'd friends, and fame, and honours then,And had his noble name advanc'd with men;But weary of that flight,He stoop'd in all men's sightTo sordid flatteries, acts of strife,And sunk in that dead sea of life,So deep, as he did then death's waters sup,But that the cork of title buoy'd him up. THE COUNTER-TURN Alas, but Morison fell young!He never fell,--thou fall'st, my tongue.He stood, a soldier to the last right end,A perfect patriot and a noble friend;But most, a virtuous son.All offices were doneBy him, so ample, full, and round,In weight, in measure, number, sound,As, though his age imperfect might appear,His life was of humanity the sphere. THE STAND Go now, and tell out days summ'd up with fears,And make them years;Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage,To swell thine age;Repeat of things a throng,To show thou hast been long,Not liv'd; for life doth her great actions spell,By what was done and wroughtIn season, and so broughtTo light: her measures are, how wellEach syllabe answer'd, and was form'd, how fair;These make the lines of life, and that's her air. THE TURN It is not growing like a treeIn bulk, doth make men better be;Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:A lily of a dayIs fairer far, in May,Although it fall and die that night,It was the plant and flower of light.In small proportions we just beauties see;And in short measures life may perfect be. THE COUNTER-TURN Call, noble Lucius, then, for wine,And let thy looks with gladness shine;Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead.He leap'd the present age,Possest with holy rage,To see that bright eternal day;Of which we priests and poets saySuch truths as we expect for happy men;And there he lives with memory, and Ben THE STAND Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he wentHimself, to rest,Or taste a part of that full joy he meantTo have exprest,In this bright asterism,Where it were friendship's schism,Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry,To separate these twi{-}Lights, the Dioscuri,And keep the one half from his Harry.But fate doth so alternate the design,Whilst that in heav'n, this light on earth must shine. THE TURN And shine as you exalted are;Two names of friendship, but one star:Of hearts the union, and those not by chanceMade, or indenture, or leas'd out t' advanceThe profits for a time.No pleasures vain did chime,Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts,Orgies of drink, or feign'd protests;But simple love of greatness and of good,That knits brave minds and manners more than blood. THE COUNTER-TURN This made you first to know the whyYou lik'd, then after, to applyThat liking; and approach so one the t'otherTill either grew a portion of the other;Each styled by his end,The copy of his friend.You liv'd to be the great surnamesAnd titles by which all made claimsUnto the virtue: nothing perfect done,But as a Cary or a Morison. THE STAND And such a force the fair example had,As they that sawThe good and durst not practise it, were gladThat such a lawWas left yet to mankind;Where they might read and findFriendship, indeed, was written not in words:And with the heart, not pen,Of two so early men,Whose lines her rolls were, and records;Who, ere the first down bloomed on the chin,Had sow'd these fruits, and got the harvest in.
✦