Classic Poem

Tread (reader) gently, gently ore
The happy dust beneath this floor:
For in this narrow vault is set
An alablaster cabinet,
Wherein both arts and arms were put,
Like Homers Iliads in a nut,
Till Death with slow and easie pace
Snatcht the bright jewell from the case;
And now, transform'd, he doth arise
A constellation in the skies,
Teaching the blinded world the way,
Through night, to startle into day:
And shipwrackt shades, with steady hand,
He steers unto th' Elizian land.
Dudley Posthumus-Lovelace.