Classic Poem

Sad Spectacle of grief! how frail is Man!
Whose self's a buble, and his life a span!
Whose breath's like a careering shade, whose sun
Begins to set, when it begins to run.
Lo this Mans sun sets i'th' Meridian,
And this mans sun, speaks him the son of Man.
Among the rest that come to sacrifice
To's memory the torrents of their eyes,
I though a stranger, and though none of those
That weep in rythme, though I oft mourn in prose,
Sigh out some grief, and my big-belly'd eyes
Long for delivery at his obsequies.
For he that writes but truth of him, will be,
Though without art, slander'd with poesie.
And they that praise him right in prose or verse,
Will by the most be thought Idolaters.
Men are s'incredulous; and yet ther's none
Can write his worth in verse, but in his own.
He needs no other monument of fame,
But his own actions, to blaze out his name.
He was a glory to the Doctors gown,
Help to his Friends, his Country and his Town
The Atlas of our health, who oft did groan
For others sickness, ere he felt his own.
Hippocrates , and Galen , in his brain
Met as in Gemini ; it did contain
A library of skill, a panoply,
A Magazine of ingenuity
With every Art his brain so well was mated,
As if his fancy had been calculated
For that Meridian; he none would follow
But was in skill the Brittanish Apollo .
His Patients grow impatient, and the fears
Of death, lymbeck'd their bodies into tears
The widdow'd Muses do lament his death;
Those that wrote mirth, do now retract their breath,
And breath their souls in sighs; each strives to be
No more Thalia , but Melpomene .
He stood a Champion in defence of health,
And was a terror to deaths Common-wealth.
His Esculapian art revok'd their breath,
And often gave a non-suit unto death
Now we've a rout, death kill'd our General,
Our griefs break forth, grow Epidemical
Now we must lay down arms, and Captives turn
To death; man has no rampire but an urne.
In him death gets an University;
Happy the bodies that so nere him lye,
To hear his worth and wit, 'tis now no fear
To dye, because we meet a Hearne there.
Earth-quakes, and Commets usher great mens fall,
At his we have an Earth-quake General;
Th'ambitious vallies do begin t'aspire,
And would confront the Mountains, nay be higher;
Inferior orbes aspire, and do disdain
Our Sol ; each Bear would ride in Charles his wain
Our Moon's eclips'd, and th'Occidental Sun
Fights with old Aries for his Horizon
Each petty star gets horses, and would be
All Sols , and joyn to make a prodigy.
All things are out of course, which could not be,
But that we should some eminent death foresee
Yet let's not think him dead who nere shall dye,
Till time be gulf'd in vast eternity.
'Tis but his shadow that is past away;
While he's eclips'd in earth, another day
His better part shall peirce the skies, and shine
In glory 'bove the Heavens Chrystaline
He is but freed from troubles that are hurl'd
Upon this smal Enchiridion of the World.
We could not understand him, hee's gone higher
To read a Lecture to an Angels Quire.
He is advanced up a higher story,
To take's degrees i'th' upper form of glory
He is our Prodrome, gone before us whether
We all must go, though all go not together:
Dust will dissolve to dust, to earth; earth are all men;
And must all dye, none knows how, where, nor when