Classic Poem

Go, intercept some fountain in the vein,
Whose virgin-source yet never steeped the plain.
Hastings is dead, and we must find a store
Of tears untouched, and never wept before.
Go, stand betwixt the morning and the flowers;
And, ere they fall, arrest the early showers.
Hastings is dead; and we, disconsolate,
With early tears must mourn his early fate.
Alas, his virtues did his death presage:
Needs must he die, that doth out-run his age.
The phlegmatic and slow prolongs his day,
And on Time's wheel sticks like a remora.
What man is he that hath not heaven beguiled,
And is not thence mistaken for a child?
While those of growth more sudden, and more bold,
Are hurried hence, as if already old.
For, there above, they number not as here,
But weigh to man the geometric year.
Had he but at this measure still increased,
And on the Tree of Life once made a feast,
As that of Knowledge; what loves had he given
To earth, and then what jealousies to heaven!
But 'tis a maxim of that state, that none,
Lest he become like them, taste more than one.
Therefore the democratic stars did rise,
And all that worth from hence did ostracize.
Yet as some prince, that, for state-jealousy,
Secures his nearest and most loved ally;
His thought with richest triumphs entertains,
And in the choicest pleasures charms his pains:
So he, not banished hence, but there confined,
There better recreates his active mind.
Before the crystal palace where he dwells,
The armèd angels hold their carousels;
And underneath, he views the tournaments
Of all these sublunary elements.
But most he doth the Eternal Book behold,
On which the happy names do stand enrolled;
And gladly there can all his kindred claim,
But most rejoices at his Mother's name.
The gods themselves cannot their joy conceal,
But draw their veils, and their pure beams reveal:
Only they drooping Hymeneus note,
Who, for sad purple, tears his saffron coat;
And trails his torches through the starry hall
Reversèd at his darling's funeral.
And Aesculapius, who, ashamed and stern,
Himself at once condemneth, and Mayern
Like some sad chemist, who, prepared to reap
The golden harvest, sees his glasses leap.
For, how immortal must their race have stood,
Had Mayern once been mixed with Hastings' blood!
How sweet and verdant would these laurels be,
Had they been planted on that balsam tree!
But what could he, good man, although he bruised
All herbs, and them a thousand ways infused?
All he had tried, but all in vain, he saw,
And wept, as we, without redress or law.
For man (alas) is but the heaven's sport;
And art indeed is long, but life is short.