Classic Poem

Honours and places, riches, pleasures be
Beyond my star, and not ordain'd for me;
Or sure the way is lost, and those we hold
For true, are counterfeits to those of old.
How sprout they else so soon, like osier tops,
Which one spring breeds and which next autumn lops?
Why are they else so fading: so possess'd
With guilt and fear, they dare not stand the test?
Had virtue and true merit been the basis,
Whereon were rais'd their honours and high places,
They had been stronger seated, and had stood
To after ages, as our ancient blood,
Whose very names, and courages well steel'd,
Made up an army, and could crown a field.
Open the way to merit and to love!
That we may teach a Cato and a dove
To heart a cause and weigh affection dear,
And I will think we live, not tarry here.

Further his plaint had gone (if needed more),
But Celadyne, now widing more the door,
Made a small noise, which startling up the man,
He straight descried him, and anew began:
What sorrow, or what curiosity,
Say (if thou be a man), conducted thee
Into these dark and unfrequented cells,
Where nought but I and dreadful horror dwells?
Or if thou be a ghost, for pity say
What pow'r, what chance, hath led thee to this way?
If so thou be a man, there can nought come
From them to me, unless it be a tomb,
And that I hold already. See! I have
Sufficient too to lend a king a grave,
A bless'd one too, within these hollow vault;
Earth hides but bodies, but oblivion, faults,
Or if thou be a ghost sent from above,
Say, is not blessed virtue and fair love,
Faith and just gratitude, rewarded there?
Alas! I know they be: I know they wear
Crowns of such glory, that their smallest ray
Can make us lend th' Antipodes a day:
Nay, change our sphere, and need no more the sun
Than those that have that light whence all begun.
Stay further inquisition, quoth the swain,
And know I am a man, and of that train
Which near the western rivers feed their flocks.
I need not make me known; for if the rocks
Can hold a sculpture, or the pow'r of verse
Preserve a name, the last-born may rehearse
Me and my fortunes. Curiosity
Led me not hither: chance, in seeing thee,
Gave me the thread, and by it I am come
To find a living man within a tomb.
Thy plaints I have o'erheard; and let it be
No wrong to them that they were heard of me.
May be that Heaven's great providence hath led
Me to these horrid caves of night and dread,
That, as in physic by some signature
Nature herself doth point us out a cure:
The liverwort is by industrious art.
Known physical and sovereign for that part
Which it resembles; and if we apply
The eye-bright by the like unto the eye,
Why may'st not thou (disconsolate) as well
From me receive a cure, since in me dwell
All those sad wrongs the world hath thrown on thee;
Which wrought so much on my proclivity,
That I have entertain'd them, and th' are grown
And so incorporated, and mine own,
That grief, elixir-like, hath turn'd me all
Into itself; and therefore physical?
For if in herbs there lie this mystery,
Say, why in other bodies may not we
Promise ourselves the like? why shouldst not thou
Expect the like from me this instant now?
And more, since Heaven hath made me for thy cure
Both the physician and the signature.
Ah! Celadyne, quoth he, and think 't not strange
I call thee by thy name; though times' now change
Makes thee forget what mine is, with my voice
I have recorded thine: and if the choice
Of all our swains, which by the western rills
Feed their white flocks and tune their oaten quills,
Were with me now, thou only art the man
Whom I would choose for my physician.
The others I would thank and wish away.
There needs but one sun to bring in the day,
Nor but one Celadyne to clear my night
Of discontent, if any human wight
Can reach that possibility: but know
My griefs admit no parallax; they go,
Like to the fixed stars, in such a sphere,
So high from meaner woes and common care
That thou canst never any distance take
'Twixt mine and others' woes; and till thou make
And know a diff'rence in my saddest fate,
The cause, the station and the ling'ring date,
From other men which are in grief o'ergone
(Since it is best read by comparison),
Thou never canst attain the least degree
Of hope to work a remedy on me.