Classic Poem

Non nobis Domine.

No marble statue, nor high
Aspiring Piramid be rays'd
To lose its head within the skie!
What claime have I to memory?
God be thou onely prais'd!

Thou in a moment canst defeate
The mighty conquests of the proude,
And blast the laurels of the great.
Thou canst make brightest glorie set
Oth' sudden in a cloude.

How can the feeble workes of Art
Hold out 'gainst the assault of stormes?
Or how can brasse to him impart
Sence of surviving fame, whose heart
Is now resolv'd to wormes?

Blinde folly of triumphing pride!
Æternitie why buildst thou here?
Dost thou not see the highest tide
Its humbled streame in th' Ocean hide,
And nere the same appeare?

That tide which did its banckes ore-flow,
As sent abroad by th' angry sea
To levell vastest buildings low,
And all our Trophes overthrow;
Ebbes like a theefe away.

And thou who to preserve thy name
Leav'st statues in some conquer'd land!
How will posterity scorne fame,
When th' Idoll shall receive a maime,
And loose a foote or hand?

How wilt thou hate thy warres, when he
Who onely for his hire did raise
Thy counterfet in stone; with thee
Shall stand Competitor, and be
Perhapes thought worthier praise?

No Laurell wreath about my brow!
To thee, my God, all praise, whose law
The conquer'd doth and conqueror bow!
For both dissolve to ayre, if thou
Thy influence but withdraw.

Non nobis Domine.

No marble statue, nor high
Aspiring Piramid be rays'd
To lose its head within the skie!
What claime have I to memory?
God be thou onely prais'd!

Thou in a moment canst defeate
The mighty conquests of the proude,
And blast the laurels of the great.
Thou canst make brightest glorie set
Oth' sudden in a cloude.

How can the feeble workes of Art
Hold out 'gainst the assault of stormes?
Or how can brasse to him impart
Sence of surviving fame, whose heart
Is now resolv'd to wormes?

Blinde folly of triumphing pride!
Æternitie why buildst thou here?
Dost thou not see the highest tide
Its humbled streame in th' Ocean hide,
And nere the same appeare?

That tide which did its banckes ore-flow,
As sent abroad by th' angry sea
To levell vastest buildings low,
And all our Trophes overthrow;
Ebbes like a theefe away.

And thou who to preserve thy name
Leav'st statues in some conquer'd land!
How will posterity scorne fame,
When th' Idoll shall receive a maime,
And loose a foote or hand?

How wilt thou hate thy warres, when he
Who onely for his hire did raise
Thy counterfet in stone; with thee
Shall stand Competitor, and be
Perhapes thought worthier praise?

No Laurell wreath about my brow!
To thee, my God, all praise, whose law
The conquer'd doth and conqueror bow!
For both dissolve to ayre, if thou
Thy influence but withdraw.