On Mr. Robert Port

Here lies hee, whom the Tyrants rage
Snatcht in a venerable age;
And here with him entomb'd do lye
Honour, and Hospitalitie.

Here lies Dr Keene, the good Bishop of Chester,
Who eat up a fat goose, but could not digest her.

Here lies a most beautiful lady,
Light of step and heart was she;
I think she was the most beautiful lady
That ever was in the West Country.
But beauty vanishes; beauty passes;
However rare—rare it be;
And when I crumble, who will remember
This lady of the West Country?

Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city grey,
Thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life's tournament:
Yet ever 'twixt the books and his bright eyes
The gleaming eagles of the legions came,
And horsemen, charging under phantom skies,
Went thundering past beneath the ori-flamme.

And now those waiting dreams are satisfied;
From twilight into spacious dawn he went;
His lance is broken; but he lies content
With that high hour, in which he lived and died.

1.

Here lie the relics of a martyred knight,
Whose loyalty, unspotted as the light,
Sealed with his blood his injured sovereign's right.

2.

The state his head did from his body sever
Because, when living, 'twas his chief endeavor
To set the nation and its head together.

3.

He boldly fell, girt round with weeping soldiers,
Imploring Heaven (for the good of the beholders)

Here lie I, once a witty fair,
Ill-loving and ill-loved;
Whose heedless beauty was my snare,
Whose wit my folly proved.

Reader, should any curious stay
To ask my luckless name,
Tell them the grave that hides my clay
Conceals me from my shame.

Tell them I mourned for guilt of sin
More than for pleasure spent:
Tell them, whate'er my morn had been,
My noon was penitent.

Here lapped in hallowed slumber Saon lies,
Asleep, not dead; a good man never dies.

Here is the tale of Carrousel,
The barber of Meridian Street,
He cut, and coiffed, and shaved so well,
That all the world was at his feet.

The King, the Queen, and all the Court,
To no one else would trust their hair,
And reigning belles of every sort
Owed their successes to his care.

With carriage and with cabriolet
Daily Meridian Street was blocked,
Like bees about a bright bouquet
The beaux about his doorway flocked.

Such was his art he could with ease
Curl wit into the dullest face;
Or to a goddess of old Greece

Here is the same familiar land
My mother knew when she was young.
This warm earth crumbled to her hand,
She heard these very bird notes sung.

In that green meadow down the lane,
Knee-deep her pony cropped the grass,
The beaten pathways still remain
That felt her flying footsteps pass.

Beyond that willow tree the stream
Plunges forever into foam, —
Let us go there a while and dream
Of this dear place that was her home.
...

She must have stood here long ago
Upon this lichen-covered stone

Here is the long-bided hour: the labor of years is accomplished.
Why should this sadness unplumbed secretly weigh on my heart?
Is it, my work being done, I stand like a laborer, useless,
One who has taken his pay, a stranger to tasks that are new?
Is it the work I regret, the silent companion of midnight,
Friend of the golden-haired Dawn, friend of the gods of the hearth?