Classic Poem

Sacred Religion, mother of form and fear,
How gorgeously sometimes dost thou sit decked!
What pompous vestures do we make thee wear!
What stately piles we prodigal erect!
How sweet-perfumed thou art, how shining clear!
How solemnly observed, with what respect!

Another time all plain, and quite threadbare,
Thou must have all within and nought without;
Sit poorly without light, disrobed, no care
Of outward grace, to amuse the poor devout;
Powerless, unfollowed, scarcely men can spare
Thee necessary rites to set thee out.

Either truth, goodness, virtue are not still
The self same which they are, and always one,
But alter to the project of our will,
Or we our actions make them wait upon,
Putting them in the livery of our skill,
And cast them off again when we have done.

You mighty lords, that with respected grace
Do at the stern of fair example stand,
And all the body of this populace
Guide with the only turning of your hand,
Keep a right course, bear up from all disgrace,
Observe the point of glory to our land;

Hold up disgraced knowledge from the ground,
Keep virtue in request, give worth her due,
Let not neglect with barbarous means confound
So fair a good to bring in night anew.
Be not, O be not accessary found
Unto her death that must give life to you.

Where will you have your virtuous names safe laid,
In gorgeous tombs, in sacred cells secure?
Do you not see those prostrate heaps betrayed
Your fathers' bones, and could not keep them sure?
And will you trust deceitful stones fair laid,
And think they will be to your honour truer?

No, no; unsparing time will proudly send
A warrant unto wrath that with one frown
Will all these mockeries of vainglory rend,
And make them as before, ungraced, unknown;
Poor idle honours that can ill defend
Your memories, that cannot keep their own.

And whereto serve that wondrous trophy now
That on the goodly plain near Wilton stands?
That huge dumb heap, that cannot tell us how,
Nor what, nor whence it is, nor with whose hands,
Nor for whose glory, it was set to show
How much our pride mocks that of other lands.

Whereon whenas the gazing passenger
Hath greedy looked with admiration,
And fain would know his birth, and what he were,
How there erected, and how long agone,
Enquires and asks his fellow traveller
What he hath heard and his opinion:

And he knows nothing. Then he turns again,
And looks and sighs, and then admires afresh,
And in himself with sorrow doth complain
The misery of dark forgetfulness,
Angry with time that nothing should remain
Our greatest wonders'-wonder to express.