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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>An Ode - Inscribed To The Memory Of The Hon. Colonel George Villiers</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Say, dearest Villiers, poor departed friend,<br>(Since fleeting life thus suddenly must end)<br>Say, what did all thy busy hopes avail, <br>That anxious thou from pole to pole didst sail, <br>Ere on thy chin the springing beard began<br>To spread a doubtful down and promise man?<br>What profited thy thoughts, and toils, and cares<br>In vigour more confirmed and riper years,<br>To wake ere morning-dawn to loud alarms,<br>And march till close of night in heavy arms,<br>To scorn the summer's suns and winter's snows,<br>And search through every clime thy country's foes?<br>That thou might'st Fortune to thy side engage,<br>That gentle Peace might quell Bellona's rage,<br>And Anna's bounty crown her soldier's hoary age?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In vain we think that free-will'd man has power<br>To hasten or protract th' appointed hour.<br>Our term of life depends not on our deed:<br>Before our birth our funeral was decreed.<br>Nor awed by foresight, nor misled by chance,<br>Imperious Death directs his ebon lance,<br>Peoples great Henry's tombs, and leads up Holben's dance.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Alike must every state and every age<br>Sustain the universal tyrant's rage,<br>For neither William's power nor Mary's charms<br>Could or repel or pacify his arms.<br>Young Churchill fell as life began to bloom,<br>And Bradford's trembling age expects the tomb.<br>Wisdom and Eloquence in vain would plead<br>One moment's respite for the learned head;<br>Judges of writings and of men have died,<br>Maecenas, Sackville, Socrates, and Hyde;<br>And in their various turns the sons must tread<br>Those gloomy journeys which their sires have led.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The ancient sage, who did so long maintain<br>That bodies die, but souls return again,<br>With all the births and deaths he had in store,<br>Went out Pythagoras, and came no more. <br>And modern Asgyll, whose capricious thought<br>Is yet with stores of wilder notions fraught,<br>Too soon convinced, shall yield that fleeting breath<br>Which play'd so idly with the darts of Death.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Some from the stranded vessel force their way;<br>Fearful of fate they meet it in the sea:<br>Some, who escape the fury of the wave,<br>Sicken on earth, and sink into a grave.<br>In journeys or at home, in war or peace,<br>By hardships many, many fall by ease.<br>Each changing season does its poison bring,<br>Rheums chill the winter, agues blast the spring:<br>Wet, dry, cold, hot, at the appointed hour,<br>All act subservient to the tyrant's power;<br>And when obedient Nature knows his will<br>A fly, a grape-stone, or a hair can kill.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For restless Proserpine for ever treads<br>In paths unseen, o'er our devoted heads,<br>And on the spacious land and liquid main<br>Spreads slow disease, or darts afflictive pain:<br>Variety of deaths confirms her endless reign.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">On cursed Piava's banks the goddess stood,<br>Show'd her dire warrant to the rising flood,<br>When he I long must love and long must mourn<br>With fatal speed was urging his return,<br>In his dear country to disperse his care,<br>And arm himself by rest for future war,<br>To chide his anxious friends' officious fears,<br>And promise to their joys his elder years.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh! destined head; and, oh! severe decree,<br>Nor native country thou nor friend shalt see;<br>Nor war hast thou to wage, nor year to come, <br>Impending death is thine, and instant doom.<br>Hark! the imperious goddess is obey'd; <br>Winds murmur, snows descend, and waters spread.<br>Oh! Kinsman, Friend - Oh! vain are all the cries<br>Of human voice, strong Destiny replies:<br>Weep you on earth, for he shall sleep below;<br>Thence none return, and thither all must go.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Whoe'er thou art, whom choice or business leads<br>To this sad river, or the neighbouring meads,<br>If thou may'st happen on the dreary shores<br>To find the object which this verse deplores,<br>Cleanse the pale corpse with a religious hand<br>From the polluting weed and common sand;<br>Lay the dead hero graceful in a grave,<br>(The only honour he can now receive)<br>And fragrant mould upon his body throw,<br>And plant the warrior-laurel o'er his brow;<br>Light lie the earth, and flourish green the bough!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457104" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">So may just Heaven secure thy future life<br>From foreign dangers and domestic strife;<br>And when th' infernal Judge's dismal power<br>From the dark urn shall throw thy destin'd hour;<br>When, yielding to the sentence, breathless thou,<br>And pale shalt lie, as what thou buriest now,<br>May some kind friend the piteous object see,<br>And equal rites perform to that which once was thee!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Matthew+Prior">Matthew Prior</a></strong></div>