Читать книгу The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Beaumont Francis - Страница 8

To flatter living fooles is easie slight:

But hard, to do the living-dead men right.

To praise a Landed Lord, is gainfull art:

But thanklesse to pay Tribute to desert.

This should have been my taske: I had intent

To bring my rubbish to thy monument,

To stop some crannies there, but that I found

No need of least repaire; all firme and sound.

Thy well-built fame doth still it selfe advance

Above the Worlds mad zeale and ignorance,

Though thou dyedst not possest of that same pelfe

(Which Nobler soules call durt,) the City wealth:

Yet thou hast left unto the times so great

A Legacy, a Treasure so compleat,

That 'twill be hard I feare to prove thy Will:

Men will be wrangling, and in doubting still

How so vast summes of wit were left behind,

And yet nor debts nor sharers they can finde.

'Twas the kind providence of fate, to lock

Some of this Treasure up; and keep a stock

For a reserve untill these sullen daies:

When scorn, and want, and danger, are the Baies

That Crown the head of merit. But now he

Who in thy Will hath part, is rich and free.

But there's a Caveat enter'd by command,

None should pretend, but those can understand.