l her marble is more dust than she.
In thee all's lost: a sudden dearth and want
Hath seiz'd on wit, good epitaphs are scant.
We dare not write thy elegy, whilst each fears
He ne'er shall match that copy of thy tears.
Scarce in an age a poet, and yet he
Scarce live the third part of his age to see,
But quickly taken off and only known,
Is in a minute shut as soon as shown.
Why should weak Nature tire herself in vain
In such a piece, to dash it straight again?
Why should she take such work beyond her skill,
Which, when she cannot perfect, she must kill?
Alas! what is't to temper slime and mire?
But Nature's puzzled when she works in fire.
Great brains (like brightest glass) crack straight, while those
Of stone or wood hold out, and fear not blows;
And we their ancient hoary heads can see
Whose wit was never their mortality.
_Beaumont_ dies young, so _Sidney_ did before,
There was not poetry he could live to more,
He could not grow up higher, I scarce know
If th' art itself unto that pitch could grow,
Were't not in thee that hadst arriv'd the height
Of all that wit could reach, or nature might.
O when I read those excellent things of thine,
Such strength, such sweetness couched in ev'ry line,
Such life of fancy, such high choice of brain,
Nought of the vulgar wit or borrow'd strain,
Such passion, such expressions meet my eye,
Such wit untainted with obscenity,
And these so unaffectedly exprest,
All in a language purely flowing drest,
And all so born within thyself, thine own,
So new, so fresh, so nothing trod upon:
I grieve not now that old _Menander's_ vein
Is ruin'd to survive in thee again;
Such, in his time, was he of the same piece,
The smooth, even, nat'ral wit and love of Greece.
Those few sententious fragments shew more worth,
Than all the poets Athens e'er brought forth;
And I am sorry we have lost those hours
On them, whose quickness comes far short of ours,
And dwell not more on thee, whose ev'ry page
May be a pattern for their scene and stage.
I will not yield thy works so mean a praise;
More pure, more chaste, more sainted than are plays:
Nor with that dull supineness to be read,
To pass a fire, or laugh an hour in bed.
How do the Muses suffer every where,
Taken in such mouth's censure, in such ears,