An Ode - Inscribed To The Memory Of The Hon. Colonel George Villiers
Say, dearest Villiers, poor departed friend,
(Since fleeting life thus suddenly must end)
Say, what did all thy busy hopes avail,
That anxious thou from pole to pole didst sail,
Ere on thy chin the springing beard began
To spread a doubtful down and promise man?
What profited thy thoughts, and toils, and cares
In vigour more confirmed and riper years,
To wake ere morning-dawn to loud alarms,
And march till close of night in heavy arms,
To scorn the summer's suns and winter's snows,
And search through every clime thy country's foes?
That thou might'st Fortune to thy side engage,
That gentle Peace might quell Bellona's rage,
And Anna's bounty crown her soldier's hoary age?
In vain we think that free-will'd man has power
To hasten or protract th' appointed hour.
Our term of life depends not on our deed:
Before our birth our funeral was decreed.
Nor awed by foresight, nor misled by chance,
Imperious Death directs his ebon lance,
Peoples great Henry's tombs, and leads up Holben's dance.
Alike must every state and every age
Sustain the universal tyrant's rage,
For neither William's power nor Mary's charms
Could or repel or pacify his arms.
Young Churchill fell as life began to bloom,
And Bradford's trembling age expects the tomb.
Wisdom and Eloquence in vain would plead
One moment's respite for the learned head;
Judges of writings and of men have died,
Maecenas, Sackville, Socrates, and Hyde;
And in their various turns the sons must tread
Those gloomy journeys which their sires have led.
The ancient sage, who did so long maintain
That bodies die, but souls return again,
With all the births and deaths he had in store,
Went out Pythagoras, and came no more.
And modern Asgyll, whose capricious thought
Is yet with stores of wilder notions fraught,
Too soon convinced, shall yield that fleeting breath
Which play'd so idly with the darts of Death.
Some from the stranded vessel force their way;
Fearful of fate they meet it in the sea:
Some, who escape the fury of the wave,
Sicken on earth, and sink into a grave.
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poem by Matthew Prior
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