Classic Poem

A chosen privacy, a cheap content,
And all the peace which friendship ever lent,
A rock which civill nature made a seat,
A willow that repulses all the heat,
The beauteous quiet of a Summer's day,
A brook which sobb'd aloud and ran away,
Envited my repose; and then conspir'd
To entertain my fancy thus retir'd

As Lucian's Ferry=man aloft did view
The angry world, and then laught at it too:
So all its sullen follys seem'd to me
But as a too well acted Tragedy
One dangerous ambition does befoole,
Another envy to see that man rule:
One makes his Love the parent of his rage,
For private friendship publiquely t'engage:
And some for Conscience, some for Honour dy;
And some are meanely kill'd, they know not why.
More different then men's faces are their ends,
Whom yet one common ruine can make friends:
Death, dust and darkness they have onely wonne,
And hastily unto their periods run.
Death is a Leveller; beauty, and kings,
And conquerours, and all those glorious things,
Are tumbled to their graves in one rude heap,
Like common dust, as quiet and as cheap!
At greater changes who would wonder then,
Since Kingdoms have their fates as well as men?
They must fall sick and dy; nothing can be
In this world certain, but uncertainty.
Since pow'r and greatness are such slippery things,
Who'd pitty cottages, or envy Kings?
Now least of all, when, weary of deceit,
The world no longer flatters with the great
Though such confusions Here below we find,
As Providence were wanton with Mankind:
Yet in this chaos some things doe send forth,
Like Jewells in the dark, a native worth
He that derives his high nobillity
Not from the mention of a Pedegree;
Who thinks it not his praise that others know
His Ancestors were gallant long ago;
Who scorns to boast the glorys of his blood,
And thinks he can't be great that is not good;
Who knows the world, and what we pleasure call,
Yet cannot sell one conscience for them all;
Who hates to hoard that gold with an excuse,
For which he can find out a nobler use;
Who dares not keep that life that he can spend,
To serve his god, his countrey, and his friend;
Treachery and Flattery doth so much hate,
He would not buy ten lives at such a rate;
Whose soule, then Diamonds more rich and cleare,
Native and open as his face doth weare;
Who dares be good alone in such a time,
When vertue's held and punish'd as a crime;
Who thinks dark crooked plots a meane defence,
And is both safe and wise in inocence;
Who dares both fight and dy, but dares not feare;
Whose only doubt is, if his cause be cleare;
Whose courage and his Justice equall=worn,
Can dangers grapple, overcome and scorn,
Yet not insult upon a fallen Foe,
But can forgive him and obleige him too;
Whose Friendship is congeniall with his Soule,
Who where he gives a heart bestows it whole;
Whose other tys and titles here doe end,
Or buryed or compleated in the Friend;
Who ne're resumes the Soule he once did give,
While his friend's constancy and honour live;
And if his friend's content could cost that price,
Would count himself a happy sacrifise;
Whose happy days no pride infects, nor can
His other titles make him slight the man;
No dark ambitious thoughts doe cloud his brow,
Nor restless cares when to be great, or how;
Who scorns to envy trash where e're it be,
But pittys such a Golden slavery;
With no meane fawnings can the people court,
Nor wholly slights a popular report;
Whose house no Orphan = grones doe shake or blast,
Nor any ryot helpe to serve his tast;
Who from the top of his prosperities
Can take a fall, and yet without surprize;
Who with the same august and even state
Can entertaine the best and worst of fate;
Whose suffering's sweet, if honour once adorne it,
And slights revenge, not that he feares, but scornes it;
Whose happynesse in every fortune lives,
For that no fortune either takes or gives;
Who no unhandsome wayes can bribe his fate,
Nay, out of prison marches through the gate;
Who loosing all his titles and his pelfe,
Nay, all the world, can never loose himselfe;
This person shines indeed, and he that can
Be vertuous is the great immortall man.