Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599). The Complete Poetical Works. 1908.
AstrophelAn Epitaph upon the Right Honourable Sir Phillip Sidney, Knight: Lord Governor of Flushing
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And want thy wit, thy wit high, pure, divine,
Is far beyond the powre of mortall line,
Nor any one hath worth that draweth breath.
And friendly care obscurde in secret brest,
And love that envie in thy life supprest,
Thy deere life done, and death, hath doubled more.
Did onely praise thy vertues in my thought,
As one that seeld the rising sun hath sought,
With words and teares now waile thy timelesse fate.
Nor lesse than such, (by gifts that Nature gave,
The common mother that all creatures have,)
Doth vertue shew, and princely linage shine.
That God thee gave, who found it now too deere
For this base world, and hath resumde it neere,
To sit in skies, and sort with powers divine.
The heavens made hast, and staid nor yeers nor time;
The fruits of age grew ripe in thy first prime,
Thy will, thy words; thy words the seales of truth.
To treat from kings with those more great than kings,
Such hope men had to lay the highest things
On thy wise youth, to be transported hence.
Thy countries love, religion, and thy friends:
Of worthy men the marks, the lives, and ends,
And her defence, for whom we labor all.
Griefe, sorrow, sicknes, and base Fortunes might:
Thy rising day saw never wofull night,
But past with praise from of this worldly stage.
First thine owne death, and after thy long fame;
Teares to the soldiers, the proud Castilians shame;
Vertue exprest, and honor truly taught.
Yoong yeeres for endles yeeres, and hope unsure
Of Fortunes gifts for wealth that still shall dure:
Oh happie race with so great praises run!
Flaunders thy valure, where it last was tried;
The campe thy sorrow, where thy bodie died;
Thy friends, thy want; the world, thy vertues fame.
Letters thy learning; thy losse, yeeres long to come;
In worthy harts sorrow hath made thy tombe;
Thy soule and spright enrich the heavens above.
Yoong sighs, sweet sighes, sage sighes, bewaile thy fall:
Envie her sting, and Spite hath left her gall;
Malice her selfe a mourning garment weares.
Scipio, Cicero, and Petrarch of our time,
Whose vertues, wounded by my worthlesse rime,
Let angels speake, and heaven thy praises tell.