Classic Poem

Must noble Hastings immaturely die,
The honor of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding sheet ?
Must Virtue prove Death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?
Is death, sin's wages, grace's how? shall art
Make us more learned, only to depart?
If merit be disease; if virtue death;
To be good; not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
Labor a crime? study self-murther deem?
Our noble youth now have pretense to be
Dunces securely, ign'rant healthfully.
Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise,
Tho' not his own, all tongues besides do raise!
Then whom great Alexander may seem less,
Who conquer'd men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations speak; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.
His native soil was the four parts o' th' earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apostle; and, (with rev'rence may
I speak 'it,) inspir'd with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him, a child, what men in vain
Oft strive, by art tho' further'd; to obtain.
His body was an orb, his sublime soul
Did move on virtue's and on learning's pole:
Whose reg'lar motions better to our view,
Then Archimedes sphere, the heavens did shew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, fill'd up all the parts.
Heav'n's gifts, which do, like falling stars, appear
Scatter'd in others; all, as in their sphere,
Were fix'd and conglobate in 's soul and thence
Shone thro' his body, with sweet influence;
Letting their glories so on each limb fall,
The whole frame render'd was celestial.
Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make,
If thou this hero's altitude canst take:
But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus astonomical.
Liv'd Tycho now, struck with this ray, which shone
More bright i' th' morn, then others' beam at noon,
He'd take his astrolabe , and seek out here
What new star 'twas did gild, our hemisphere.
Replenish'd then with such rare gifts as these,
Where was room left for such a foul disease?
The nation's sin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds
Our dayspring in so sad benighting clouds.
Heaven would no longer trust its pledge; but thus
Recall'd it; rapt its Ganymede from us.
Was there no milder way but the smallpox,
The very filth'ness of Pandora's box?
So many spots, like nœves , our Venus soil?
One jewel set off with so many a foil!
Blisters with pride swell'd, which thro' 's flesh did sprout,
Like rose-buds, stuck i' th' lily skin about.
Each little pimple had a tear in it,
To wail the fault its rising did commit:
Who, rebel-like, with their own lord at strife,
Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
The cab'net of a richer soul within?
No comet need foretell his change drew on,
Whose corpse might seem a constellation .
O, had he died of old, how great a strife
Had been, who from his death should draw their life?
Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er
Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæsar, were;
Learn'd, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this
An universal meiempsuchosis .
Must all these ag'd sires in one funeral
Expire? all die in one so young, so small?
Who, had he liv'd his life out, his great fame
Had swoll'n 'bove any Greek or Roman name.
But hasty winter, with one blast, hath brought
The hopes of autumn, summer, spring, to naught.
Thus fades the oak i' th' sprig, i' th' blade the corn;
Thus without young, this Phœnix dies, newborn.
Must then old three-legg'd graybeards with their gout,
Catarrhs, rheums, achës, live three ages out?
Time's offal, only fit for th' hospital,
Or t' hang an antiquary's room withal!
Must drunkards, lechers, spent with sinning, live
With such helps as broths, possets, physic give?
None live, but such as should die? shall we meet
With none but ghostly fathers in the street?
Grief makes me rail: sorrow will force its way;
And show'rs of tears tempestuous sighs best lay.
The tongue may fail, but overflowing eyes
Will weep out lasting streams of elegies.
 But thou, O virgin-widow , left alone,
Now thy belov'd, heaven-ravish'd spouse is gone.
(Whose skilful sire in vain strove to apply
Med'cines, when thy balm was no remedy,)
With greater then Platonic love, O wed
His soul, tho' not his body, to thy bed:
Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth
Th' ideas of his virtue, knowledge, worth;
Transcribe th' original in new copies; give
Hastings o' th' better part: so shall he live
In 's nobler half; and the great grandsire be
Of an heroic divine progeny;
An issue, which t' eternity shall last,
Yet but th' irradiations which he cast.
Erect no mausoleums ; for his best
Monument is his spouse's marble breast.