TO THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN.
45
My thoughts awhile, like you, imprison'd lay;
Great joys, as well as sorrows, make a stay;
They hinder one another in the crowd,
And none are heard, whilst all would speak aloud.
Should every man's officious gladness haste,
And be afraid to shew itself the last,
The throng of gratulations now would be
Another loss to you of liberty.
When of your freedom men the news did hear,
Where it was wish'd-for, that is every-where,
'T was like the speech which from your lips does fall;
As soon as it was heard, it ravish'd all.
So eloquent Tully did from exile come;
Thus long'd-for he return'd, and cherish'd Rome;
Which could no more his tongue and counsels miss;
Rome, the world's head, was nothing without his.
Wrong to those sacred ashes I should do,
Should I compare any to him but you;
You, to whom Art and Nature did dispense
The consulship of wit and eloquence.
Nor did your fate differ from his at all,
Because the doom of exile was his fall;
For the whole world, without a native home,
Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
But like a melting woman suffer'd he,
He who before out-did humanity;
Nor could his spirit constant and stedfast prove,
Whose art 't had been, and greatest end, to move.
You put ill-fortune in so good a dress,
That it out-shone other men's happiness:
Great joys, as well as sorrows, make a stay;
They hinder one another in the crowd,
And none are heard, whilst all would speak aloud.
Should every man's officious gladness haste,
And be afraid to shew itself the last,
The throng of gratulations now would be
Another loss to you of liberty.
When of your freedom men the news did hear,
Where it was wish'd-for, that is every-where,
'T was like the speech which from your lips does fall;
As soon as it was heard, it ravish'd all.
So eloquent Tully did from exile come;
Thus long'd-for he return'd, and cherish'd Rome;
Which could no more his tongue and counsels miss;
Rome, the world's head, was nothing without his.
Wrong to those sacred ashes I should do,
Should I compare any to him but you;
You, to whom Art and Nature did dispense
The consulship of wit and eloquence.
Nor did your fate differ from his at all,
Because the doom of exile was his fall;
For the whole world, without a native home,
Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
But like a melting woman suffer'd he,
He who before out-did humanity;
Nor could his spirit constant and stedfast prove,
Whose art 't had been, and greatest end, to move.
You put ill-fortune in so good a dress,
That it out-shone other men's happiness:
