Classic Poem

The modest front of this small floore
Beleeve mee, Reader, can say more
Than many a braver Marble can;
Here lyes a truly honest man.
One whose Conscience was a thing,
That troubled neither Church nor King.
One of those few that in this Towne,
Honour all Preachers; heare their owne.
Sermons he heard, yet not so many,
As left no time to practise any.
Hee heard them reverendly, and then
His practice preach'd them o'er agen.
His Parlour-Sermons rather were
Those to the Eye, than to the Eare.
His prayers tooke their price and strength
Not from the loudness, nor the length.
Hee was a Protestant at home,
Not onely in despight of Rome.
Hee lov'd his Father; yet his zeale
Tore not off his Mothers veile.
To th' Church hee did allow her Dresse,
True Beauty, to true Holinesse.
Peace, which hee lov'd in Life, did lend
Her hand to bring him to his end;
When Age and Death call'd for the score,
No surfets were to reckon for.
Death tore not (therefore) but sans strife
Gently untwin'd his thread of Life.
What remaines then, but that Thou
Write these lines, Reader, in thy Brow.
And by his faire Examples light,
Burne in thy Imitation bright.
So while these Lines can but bequeath
A Life perhaps unto his Death,
His better Epitaph shall bee,
His Life still kept alive in Thee.