Classic Poem

'Tis not a Pyramide of Marble stone,
Though high as our ambition;
'Tis not a Tomb cut out in Brass, which can
Give life to th'ashes of a man,
But Verses only; they shall fresh appear,
Whilst there are men to read, or hear.
When Time shall make the lasting Brass decay,
And eat the Pyramide away,
Turning that Monument wherein men trust
Their names, to what it keeps, poor dust:
Then shall the Epitaph remain, and be
New graven in Eternity
Poets by Death are conquered, but the wit
Of Poets triumph over it.
What cannot Verse? When Thracian Orpheus took
His Lyre, and gently on it strook,
The learned stones came dancing all along,
And kept time to the charming Song.
With artificial pace the Warlike Pine ,
Th' Elm , and his Wife the Ivy twine ,
With all the better trees, which erst had stood
Unmov'd, forsook their native Wood.
The Lawrel to the Poets hand did bow,
Craving the honour of his Brow:
And every loving arm embrac'd, and made
With their officious leaves a shade.
The Beasts too strove his auditors to be,
Forgetting their old tyranny.
The fearful Hart next to the Lion came,
And Wolf was Shepherd to the Lamb .
Nightingales , harmless Syrens of the air,
And Muses of the place, were there
Who when their little windpipes they had found
Unequal to so strange a sound,
O'recome by art and grief they did expire,
And fell upon the conquering Lyre
Happy, O happy they, whose Tomb might be,
Mausolus , envied by thee!