THE TURN
Brave infant of Saguntum, clear
Thy
coming forth in that great year,
When the prodigious Hannibal
did crown
His rage with razing your
immortal town.
Thou looking then about,
Ere thou wert half got out,
Wise
child, didst hastily return,
And
mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
How summ'd a circle didst
thou leave mankind
Of deepest lore, could we the centre
find!
THE COUNTER-TURN
Did wiser nature draw thee back,
From out
the horror of that sack;
Where shame, faith, honour, and
regard of right,
Lay trampled on? The deeds of death
and night
Urg'd, hurried forth, and hurl'd
Upon th' affrighted world;
Sword, fire
and famine with fell fury met,
And all
on utmost ruin set:
As, could they but life's miseries
foresee,
No doubt all infants would return
like thee.
THE STAND
For what is life, if
measur'd by the space,
Not by the act?
Or masked man, if valu'd by his
face,
Above his fact?
Here's one outliv'd his peers
And told forth fourscore years:
He vexed
time, and busied the whole state;
Troubled both foes and friends;
But ever to no ends:
What did
this stirrer but die late?
How well at twenty had he fall'n
or stood!
For three of his four score he did
no good.
THE TURN
He enter'd well, by virtuous parts
Got up,
and thriv'd with honest arts;
He purchas'd friends, and fame,
and honours then,
And had his noble name advanc'd
with men;
But weary of that flight,
He stoop'd in all men's sight
To sordid
flatteries, acts of strife,
And sunk
in that dead sea of life,
So deep, as he did then death's
waters sup,
But that the cork of title buoy'd
him up.
THE COUNTER-TURN
Alas, but Morison fell young!
He never
fell,--thou fall'st, my tongue.
He stood, a soldier to the last
right end,
A perfect patriot and a noble friend;
But most, a virtuous son.
All offices were done
By him,
so ample, full, and round,
In weight,
in measure, number, sound,
As, though his age imperfect might
appear,
His life was of humanity the sphere.
THE STAND
Go now, and tell out
days summ'd up with fears,
And make them years;
Produce thy mass of miseries on
the stage,
To swell thine age;
Repeat of things a throng,
To show thou hast been long,
Not liv'd;
for life doth her great actions spell,
By what was done and wrought
In season, and so brought
To light:
her measures are, how well
Each syllabe answer'd, and was form'd,
how fair;
These make the lines of life, and
that's her air.
THE TURN
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred
year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald,
and sear:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far, in May,
Although
it fall and die that night,
It was the
plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties
see;
And in short measures life may perfect
be.
THE COUNTER-TURN
Call, noble Lucius, then, for wine,
And let
thy looks with gladness shine;
Accept this garland, plant it on
thy head,
And think, nay know, thy Morison's
not dead.
He leap'd the present age,
Possest with holy rage,
To see that
bright eternal day;
Of which
we priests and poets say
Such truths as we expect for happy
men;
And there he lives with memory,
and Ben
THE STAND
Jonson, who sung this
of him, ere he went
Himself, to rest,
Or taste a part of that full joy
he meant
To have exprest,
In this bright asterism,
Where it were friendship's schism,
Were not
his Lucius long with us to tarry,
To separate these twi{\-}
Lights,
the Dioscuri,
And keep
the one half from his Harry.
But fate doth so alternate the design,
Whilst that in heav'n, this light
on earth must shine.
THE TURN
And
shine as you exalted are;
Two names
of friendship, but one star:
Of hearts the union, and those not
by chance
Made, or indenture, or leas'd
out t' advance
The profits for a time.
No pleasures vain did chime,
Of
rhymes, or riots, at your feasts,
Orgies
of drink, or feign'd protests;
But simple love of greatness
and of good,
That knits brave minds and
manners more than blood.
THE COUNTER-TURN
This made you first to know the why
You
lik'd, then after, to apply
That liking; and approach
so one the t'other
Till either grew a portion
of the other;
Each styled by his end,
The copy of his friend.
You
liv'd to be the great surnames
And
titles by which all made claims
Unto the virtue: nothing perfect
done,
But as a Cary or a Morison.
THE STAND
And such a force
the fair example had,
As they that saw
The good and durst not practise
it, were glad
That such a law
Was left yet to mankind;
Where they might read and find
Friendship,
indeed, was written not in words:
And with the heart, not pen,
Of two so early men,
Whose
lines her rolls were, and records;
Who, ere the first down bloomed
on the chin,
Had sow'd these fruits, and
got the harvest in
--Ben Jonson
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