TO praise thy life, or waile thy worthie death, Is far beyond the powre of mortall line, Yet rich in zeale, though poore in learnings lore, Thy deere life done, and death, hath doubled more. And I, that in thy time, and living state, With words and teares now waile thy timelesse fate. Drawne was thy race aright from princely line; A king gave thee thy name; a kingly minde, Kent thy birth daies, and Oxford held thy youth; Great gifts and wisedom rare imployd thee thence, Whence to sharpe wars sweet honor did thee call, There didst thou vanquish shame and tedious age, But past with praise from off this worldly stage. Back to the campe, by thee that day was brought, What hath he lost, that such great grace hath woon? England doth hold thy lims that bred the same, Nations thy wit, our mindes lay up thy love; 21 Thy liberall hart imbalmd in gratefull teares, That day their Hanniball died, our Scipio fell; ANOTHER OF THE SAME ILENCE augmenteth grief, writing encreaseth rage, Stald are my thoughts, which lov'd, and lost, the wonder of our age; Yet quickned now with fire, though dead with frost ere now, Enrag'de I write, I know not what: dead, quick, I know not how. Hard harted mindes relent, and Rigors teares abound, And Envie strangely rues his end, in whom no fault she found: Knowledge her light hath lost, Valor hath slaine her knight; Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the worlds delight. Place pensive wailes his fall, whose presence was her pride; Time crieth out, My ebbe is come; his life was my spring tide: Fame mournes in that she lost the ground of her reports; Ech living wight laments his lacke, and all in sundry sorts. He was (wo worth that word!) to ech well thinking minde A spotlesse friend, a matchles man, whose vertue ever shinde, Declaring in his thoughts, his life, and that he writ, Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit. He, onely like himselfe, was second unto none, Whose deth (though life) we rue, and wrong, and al in vain do mone: Their losse, not him, waile they, that fill the world with cries; Death slue not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies. Now sinke of sorrow I, who live; the more the wrong; Who wishing death, whom deth denies, whose thred is al-to long, Who tied to wretched life, who lookes for no reliefe, Must spend my ever dying daies in never ending griefe. Harts ease and onely I, like parallels run on, Whose equall length keep equall bredth, and never meet in one; Yet for not wronging him, my thoughts, my sorrowes cell, Shall not run out, though leake they will, for liking him so well. Farewell to you, my hopes, my wonted waking dreames ; Farewell, sometimes enjoyed, joy; eclipsed are thy beames! Farewell selfe pleasing thoughts, which quietnes brings foorth; And farewell friendships sacred league, uniting minds of woorth. And farewell mery hart, the gift of guiltlesse mindes, And all sports, which, for lives restore, varietie assignes ; Let all, that sweete is, voyd; in me no mirth may dwell: Phillip, the cause of all this woe, my lives content, farewell! Now rime, the sonne of rage, which art no kin to skill, And endles griefe, which deads my life, yet knowes not how to kill, Go, seeke that haples tombe; which if ye hap to finde, Salute the stones, that keep the lims that held so good a minde. |