Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/218

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POPE.

rest. There is scarce one line taken from common places, unless it be that in which only Virtue is said to be our own. I once heard a Lady of great beauty and excellence object to the fourth line, that it contained an unnatural and incredible panegyrick. Of this let the Ladies judge.


VII.

On the Monument of the Hon. Robert Digby, and of his Sister Mary, erected by their Father the Lord Digby, in the church of Sherborne in Dorsetshire, 1727.

Go! fair example of untainted youth,
Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth:
Compos'd in sufferings, and in joy sedate,
Good without noise, without pretension great.
Just of thy word, in every thought sincere,
Who knew no wish but what the world might hear:
Of softest manners, unaffected mind,
Lover of peace, and friend of human kind:
Go, live! for heaven's eternal year is thine,
Go, and exalt thy mortal to divine.
And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom,
Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb,
Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!

Go,