Classic Poem

Was Rhetoric on the lips of sorrow hung,
Or cou'd affliction lend the heart a tongue,
Then should my soul, in noble anguish free,
Do glorious justice to herself and thee.
But ah! when loaded with a weight of woe,
Ev'n nature, blessed nature is our foe.
When we should praise, we sympathetic groan,
For sad mortality is all our own.
Yet but a word: as lowly as he lies,
He spurns all empires and asserts the skies.
Blush, power! he had no interest here below;
Blush, malice! that he dy'd without a foe;
The universal friend, so form'd to engage,
Was far too precious for this world and age.
Years were deny'd, for (such his worth and truth)
Kind heaven has call'd him to eternal youth.