LENOX LIBRARY

NEW YORK

UCH were the notes, thy once-lov'd Poet fung,
'Till death untimely stop'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh just beheld, and loft! admir'd, and mourn'd!
With fofteft manners, gentlest arts, adorn'd!
Bleft in each science, bleft in ev'ry strain !
Dear to the Mufe, to HARLEY dear-in vain!

For him, thou oft haft bid the world attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend :
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For

For SWIFT and him, defpis'd the farce of ftate,
The fober follies of the wife and great;
Dextrous, the craving, fawning croud to quit,
And pleas'd to 'fcape from flattery to wit.

Abfent or dead, ftill let a friend be dear,
(A figh the abfent claims, the dead a tear)
Recal those nights that clos'd thy toilfom days,
Still hear thy PARNELL in his living lays:
Who careless, now, of int'reft, fame, or fate,
Perhaps forgets that OXFORD e'er was great;
Or deeming meaneft what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

And fure, if ought below the feats divine
Can touch Immortals, 'tis a foul like thine:
A foul fupreme, in each hard instance try'd,
Above all pain, all paffion, and all pride,
The rage of pow'r, the blaft of public breath,
The luft of lucre, and the dread of death.

In vain to deserts thy retreat is made;
The Muse attends thee to thy filent fhade:

"Tis

'Tis her's, the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Re-judge his acts, and dignify difgrace,
When int'reft calls off all her sneaking train,
When all th' oblig'd defert, and all the vain ;
She waits, or to the fcaffold, or the cell,
When the laft ling'ring friend has bid farewel.
Ev'n now the fhades thy evening-walk with bays,
(No hireling fhe, no proftitute to praife)
E'en now, obfervant of the parting ray,
Eyes the calm fun-fet of thy various day,
Thro' fortune's cloud one truly great can fee,
Not fears to tell, that MORTIMER is he.

SEPT. 25,
1721.

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A. POPE.

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