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Tis not from
cheap thanks thinly to repay
Th' immortal grove of
thy fair-order'd bay
Thou planted'st round my humble
fane, that I
Stick on thy hearse this sprig of Elegie:
Nor that your soul so fast was link'd in me,
That now
I've both, since't has forsaken thee:
That thus I
stand a Swisse before thy gate,
And dare, for such
another, time and fate.
Alas! our faiths made
different essays,
Our Minds and Merits brake two
several ways;
Justice commands I wake thy learned
dust,
And truth, in whom all causes center must.
Behold! when but a youth, thou fierce didst whip
Upright the crooked age, and gilt vice strip;
A
senator praetext, that knew'st to sway
The fasces,
yet under the ferula;
Rank'd with the sage, ere
blossome did thy chin,
Sleeked without, and hair all
ore within,
Who in the school could'st argue as in
schools:
Thy lessons were ev'n academie rules.
So
that fair Cam saw thee matriculate,
At once a tyro
and a graduate.
At nineteen, what ESSAYES have we
beheld!
That well might have the book of Dogmas
swell'd;
Tough Paradoxes, such as Tully's, thou
Didst heat thee with, when snowy was thy brow,
When
thy undown'd face mov'd the Nine to shake,
And of the
Muses did a decad make.
What shall I say? by what
allusion bold?
NONE BUT THE SUN WAS ERE SO YOUNG AND
OLD.
Young reverend shade, ascend awhile! whilst
we
Now celebrate this posthume victorie,
This
victory, that doth contract in death
Ev'n all the
pow'rs and labours of thy breath.
Like the Judean
Hero, in thy fall
Thou pull'st the house of learning
on us all.
And as that soldier conquest doubted not,
Who but one splinter had of Castriot,
But would
assault ev'n death so strongly charmd,
And naked
oppose rocks, with his bone arm'd;
So we, secure in
this fair relique, stand
The slings and darts shot by
each profane hand.
These soveraign leaves thou
left'st us are become
Sear clothes against all Times
infection.
Sacred Hierocles, whose heav'nly
thought
First acted ore this comment, ere it wrote,
Thou hast so spirited, elixir'd, we
Conceive there is
a noble alchymie,
That's turning of this gold to
something more
Pretious than gold, we never knew
before.
Who now shall doubt the metempsychosis
Of
the great Author, that shall peruse this?
Let others
dream thy shadow wandering strays
In th' Elizian
mazes hid with bays;
Or that, snatcht up in th' upper
region,
'Tis kindled there a constellation;
I have
inform'd me, and declare with ease
THY SOUL IS FLED
INTO HIEROCLES.
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