Classic Poem

On Sir Thomas Bodley's Library; the Author being then in Oxford

Boast not proud Golgotha : that thou can'st show
The ruines of mankind, and let us know
How fraile a thing is flesh! though we see there
But empty Skulls, the Rabbins still live here.
They are not dead, but full of Blood again,
I mean the Sense , and ev'ry Line a Vein .
Triumph not o're their Dust; whoever looks
In here, shall find their Brains all in their Books.
Nor is't old Palestine alone survives,
Athens lives here, more than in Plutarch's lives.
The stones which sometimes danc'd unto the strain
Of Orpheus , here do lodge his muse again.
And you the Roman Spirits, learning has
Made your lives longer, than your Empire was.
Caesar had perish'd from the World of men,
Had not his Sword been rescu'd by his pen .
Rare Seneca ! how lasting is thy breath?
Though Nero did, thou could'st not bleed to Death.
How dull the expert Tyrant was, to look
For that in thee, which lived in thy Book?
Afflictions turn our Blood to Ink , and we
Commence when Writing , our Eternity .
Lucilius here I can behold, and see
His Counsels and his Life proceed from thee.
But what care I to whom thy Letters be?
I change the Name , and thou do'st write to me;
And in this Age, as sad almost as thine,
Thy stately Consolations are mine.
Poor Earth! what though thy viler dust enrouls
The frail Inclosures of these mighty Souls?
Their graves are all upon Record; not one
But is as bright, and open as the Sun.
And though some part of them obscurely fell
And perish'd in an unknown, private Cell:
Yet in their books they found a glorious way
To live unto the Resurrection-day.
Most noble Bodley ! we are bound to thee
For no small part of our Eternity .
Thy treasure was not spent on Horse and Hound ,
Nor that new Mode, which doth old States confound.
Thy legacies another way did go:
Nor were they left to those would spend them so.
Thy safe, discreet Expence on us did flow;
Walsam is in the mid'st of Oxford now.
Th' hast made us all thine Heirs : whatever we
Hereafter write, 'tis thy Posterity .
This is thy Monument ! here thou shalt stand
Till the times fail in their last grain of Sand.
And wheresoe're thy silent Reliques keep,
This Tomb will never let thine honour sleep.
Still we shall think upon thee; all our fame
Meets here to speak one Letter of thy name.
Thou can'st not dye! here thou art more than safe
Where every Book is thy large Epitaph .