Classic Poem

And thus that soule, which through all nations hurl'd
Conquest, and warre, and did amaze the world;
Of all those glories rob'd at his last breath,
Fortune would not vouchsafe a souldiers death,
For all that bloud the field of Cannae boasts,
And sad Apulia fill'd with Roman ghoasts:
No other end (freed from the pile, and sword)
Then a poore Ring would Fortune him afford.
Goe now ambitious man! new plots designe,
March o're the snowie Alps, and Apennine;
That after all, at best thou mayst but be
A pleasing story to posteritie!
The Macedon one world could not containe,
We heare him of the narrow Earth complaine,
And sweat for roome, as if Seryphus Ile,
Or Gyara had held him in Exile:
But Babylon this madnes can allay,
And give the great man but his length of clay;
The highest thoughts, and actions under Heaven,
Death only with the lowest dust layes even
It is believed (if what Greece writes be true)
That Xerxes with his Persian Fleet did hewe
Their waies throgh mountains, that their sails full blowne,
Like clouds hung over Athos, and did drowne
The spacious Continent, and by plaine force
Betwixt the Mount, and it made a divorce;
That Seas exhausted were, and made firme land,
And Sestos joyned unto Abidos Strand;
That on their march, his Meades but passing by,
Dranke thee Scamander, and Melenus dry;
With what soe're incredible designe
Sostratus sings inspired with pregnant Wine:
But what's the end? He that the other day
Divided Hellespont, and forc'd his way
Through all her angry billowes; that assigned
New punishments unto the waves, and wind:
No sooner saw the Salaminian Seas,
But he was driven out by Themistocles ,
And of that Fleet (suppos'd to be so great,
That all mankinde shar'd in the sad defeate)
Not one Sayle sav'd, in a poore Fishers boat,
Chas'd o're the working surge, was glad to float,
Cutting his desp'rate course through the tyr'd floud,
And fought againe with Carkasses, and bloud.
O foolish mad ambition! these are still
The famous dangers that attend thy will.
Give store of dayes, good Iove , give length of yeares,
Are the next vowes; these with religious feares,
And Constancie we pay; but what's so bad,
As a long, sinfull age? what crosse more sad
Then misery of yeares? how great an Ill
Is that, which doth but nurse more sorrow still?
It blacks the face, corrupts, and duls the bloud,
Benights the quickest eye, distasts the food,
And such deep furrowes cuts i'th' Checker'd skin
As in th'old Okes of Tabraca are seene.
Youth varies in most things; strength, beauty, wit,
Are severall graces; but where age doth hit,
It makes no diff'rence; the same weake voice,
And trembling ague in each member lyes:
A generall, hatefull baldnes, with a curst
Perpetuall pettishnes; and which is worst,
A foule, strong fluxe of humors, and more paine
To feed, then if he were to nurse again.
So tedious to himselfe, his wife, and friends,
That his owne sonnes, and servants, wish his end,
His tast, and feeling dyes; and of that fire
The am'rous Lover burnes in, no desire:
Or if there were, what pleasure could it be,
Where lust doth raigne without abilitie?
Nor is this all, what matters it, where he
Sits in the spacious Stage? who can nor see,
Nor heare what's acted, whom the stiller voice
Of spirited, wanton ayres, or the loud noise
Of Trumpets cannot pierce; whom thunder can
But scarse informe who enters, or what man
He personates, what 'tis they act, or say?
How many Scaenes are done? what time of day?
Besides that little bloud, his carkasse holds,
Hath lost its native warmth, & fraught w th colds,
Catarrhs, and rheumes, to thick, black jelly turns,
And never but in fits, and feavers burns;
Such vast infirmities, so huge a stock
Of sicknes, and diseases to him flock,
That Hyppia ne're so many Lovers knew,
Nor wanton Maura ; Phisick never slew
So many Patients, nor rich Lawyers spoile
More Wards, and Widowes; it were lesser toile
To number out what Mannors, and Demaines,
Licinius razer purchas'd: One complaines
Of weaknes in the back, another pants
For lack of breath, the third his eyesight wants;
Nay some so feeble are, and full of paine,
That Infant like they must be fed againe.
These faint too at their meales; their wine they spill,
And like young birds, that wait the Mothers Bill
They gape for meat; but sadder far then this
Their senslesse ignorance, and dotage is;
For neither they, their friends, nor servants know,
Nay those themselves begot, and bred up too
No longer now they'le owne; for madly they
Proscribe them all, and what on the last day,
The Misers cannot carry to the Grave
For their past sinnes, their prostitutes must have.