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Although I could not learn, whiles yet thou wert,

210 To speak the language of a servile breath,

My truth stole from my tongue into my heart,

Which shall not thence be sund'red, but in death.

And I confess my love was too remiss

That had not made thee know how much I priz'd thee,

215 But that mine error was, as yet it is,

To think love best in silence: for I siz'd thee

By what I would have been, not only ready

In telling I was thine, but being so,

By some effect to show it. He is steady

220 Who seems less than he is in open show.

Since then I still reserv'd to try the worst

Which hardest fate and time thus can lay on me.

T' enlarge my thoughts was hindered at first,

While thou hadst life; I took this task upon me,

225 To register with mine unhappy pen

Such duties as it owes to thy desert,

And set thee as a president to men,

And limn thee to the world but as thou wert-

Not hir'd, as heaven can witness in my soul,

230 By vain conceit, to please such ones as know it,

Nor servile to be lik'd, free from control,

Which, pain to many men, I do not owe it.

But here I trust I have discharged now

(Fair lovely branch too soon cut off) to thee,

235 My constant and irrefragable vow,

As, had it chanc'd, thou mightst have done to me-

But that no merit strong enough of mine

Had yielded store to thy well-abled quill

Whereby t'enroll my name, as this of thine,

240 How s'ere enriched by thy plenteous skill.

Here, then, I offer up to memory

The value of my talent, precious man,

Whereby if thou live to posterity,

Though't be not as I would, 'tis as I can:

245 In minds from whence endeavor doth proceed,

A ready will is taken for the deed.

Yet ere I take my longest last farewell

From thee, fair mark of sorrow, let me frame

Some ampler work of thank, wherein to tell

250 What more thou didst deserve than in thy name,

And free thee from the scandal of such senses

As in the rancor of unhappy spleen

Measure thy course of life, with false pretenses

Comparing by thy death what thou hast been.

255 So in his mischiefs is the world accurs'd:

It picks out matter to inform the worst.

The willful blindness that hoodwinks the eyes

Of men enwrapped in an earthy veil

Makes them most ignorantly exercise

260 And yield to humor when it doth assail,

Whereby the candle and the body's light

Darkens the inward eyesight of the mind,

Presuming still it sees, even in the night

Of that same ignorance which makes them blind.

265 Hence conster they with corrupt commentaries,

Proceeding from a nature as corrupt,

The text of malice, which so often varies

As 'tis by seeming reason underpropp'd.

O, whither tends the lamentable spite

270 Of this world's teenful apprehension,

Which understands all things amiss, whose light

Shines not amidst the dark of their dissension?

True 'tis, this man, whiles yet he was a man,

Sooth'd not the current of besotted fashion,

275 Nor could disgest, as some loose mimics can,

An empty sound of overweening passion,

So much to be made servant to the base

And sensual aptness of disunion'd vices,

To purchase commendation by disgrace,

280 Whereto the world and heat of sin entices.

But in a safer contemplation,

Secure in what he knew, he ever chose

The ready way to commendation,

By shunning all invitements strange, of those

285 Whose illness is, the necessary praise

Must wait upon their actions; only rare

In being rare in shame (which strives to raise

Their name by doing what they do not care),

As if the free commission of their ill

290 Were even as boundless as their prompt desires;

Only like lords, like subjects to their will,

Which their fond dotage ever more admires.

He was not so: but in a serious awe,

Ruling the little ordered commonwealth

295 Of his own self, with honor to the law

That gave peace to his bread, bread to his health;

Which ever he maintain'd in sweet content

And pleasurable rest, wherein he joy'd

A monarchy of comfort's government,

300 Never until his last to be destroy'd.

For in the Vineyard of heaven-favored learning