An Epitaph Upon the Right Honourable — Sir Philip Sidney, Knight, Lord — Governor of Flushing
To praise thy life or wail thy worthy death;
And want thy wit, thy wit pure, high, divine:
Is far beyond the power of mortal line,
Nor any one hath worth that draweth breath.
Yet rich in zeal, though poor in learning’s lore;
And friendly care obscured in secret breast,
And love that envy in thy life supprest,
Thy dear life done, and death hath doubled more.
And I, that in thy time and living state,
Did only praise thy virtues in my thought;
As one that seld the rising sun hath sought:
With words and tears now wail thy timeless fate.
Drawn was thy race aright from princely line,
Nor less than such (by gifts that Nature gave,
The common mother that all creatures have)
Doth virtue show, and princely lineage shine.
A King gave thee thy name; a kingly mind
That GOD thee gave: who found it now too dear
For this base world; and hath resumed it near,
To sit in skies, and ‘sort with powers divine.
Kent, thy birthdays; and Oxford held thy youth.
The heavens made haste, and stayed nor years nor time;
The fruits of age grew ripe in thy first prime:
Thy will, thy words; thy words, the seals of truth.
Great gifts and wisdom rare employed thee thence,
To treat from kings, with those more great than kings.
Such hope men had to lay the highest things
On thy wise youth, to be transported thence.
Whence to sharp wars, sweet Honour did thee call,
Thy country’s love, religion, and thy friends:
Of worthy men, the marks, the lives and ends;
And her defence, for whom we labour all.
These didst thou vanquish shame and tedious age,
Grief, sorrow, sickness and base fortune’s might.
Thy rising day saw never woeful night,
But passed with praise from off this worldly stage.
Back to the camp, by thee that day was brought
First, thine own death; and after, thy long fame;
Tears to the soldiers; the proud Castilians’ shame;
Virtue expressed; and honour truly taught.
What hath he lost? that such great grace hath won.
Young years, for endless years; and hope unsure
Of fortune’s gifts, for wealth that still shall ‘dure.
O happy race! with so great praises run.
England doth hold thy limbs, that bred the same;
Flanders, thy valour: where it last was tried.
The camp, thy sorrow; where thy body died.
Thy friends, thy want; the world, thy virtue’s fame.
Nations, thy wit; our minds lay up thy love.
Letters, thy learning; thy loss, years long to come.
In worthy hearts, sorrow hath made thy tomb;
Thy soul and sprite enrich the heavens above.
Thy liberal heart embalmed in grateful tears,
Young sighs, sweet sighs, sage sighs bewail thy fall.
Envy, her sting; and Spite, hath left her gall.
Malice herself, a mourning garment wears.
That day their Hannibal died, our Scipio fell:
Scipio, Cicero, and Petrarch of our time:
Whose virtues, wounded by my worthless rhyme,
Let angels speak; and heaven, thy praises tell.
Another of the Same
Silence augmenteth grief! writing increaseth rage!
Stald are my thoughts, which loved and lost the wonder of our age.
Yet quickened now with fire, though dead with frost ere now,
Enraged I write, I know not what. Dead, quick, I know not how.
Hard-hearted minds relent, and Rigour’s tears abound,
And Envy strangely rues his end, in whom no fault she found;
Knowledge her light hath lost; Valour hath slain her Knight:
Sidney is dead! Dead is my friend! Dead is the world’s delight.
Place pensive wails his fall, whose presence was her pride.
Time crieth out “my ebb is come; his life was my springtide.”
Fame mourns in that she lost the ground of her reports.
Each living wight laments his lack, and all in sundry sorts.
He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind,
A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shined:
Declaring in his thoughts, his life, and that he writ;
Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit.
He only like himself, was second unto none,
Whose death (though life) we rue, and wrong, and all in vain do moan.
Their loss, not him; wail they, that fill the world with cries.
Death slew not him; but he made death his ladder to the skies.
Now sink of sorrow I, who live, the more the wrong,
Who wishing death, whom death denies, whose thread is all too long;
Who tied to wretched life, who looks for no relief,
Must spend my ever-dying days in never-ending grief.
Heartsease and only I like parallels run on,
Whose equal length keep equal breadth, and never meet in one:
Yet for not wronging him, my thoughts, my sorrows’ cell,
Shall not run out; though leak they will, for liking him so well.
Farewell to you! my hopes, my wonted waking dreams.
Farewell sometimes enjoyèd joy! Eclipsèd are thy beams.
Farewell self-pleasing thoughts! which quietness brings forth.
And farewell friendship’s sacred league! uniting minds of worth.
And farewell, merry heart! the gift of guiltless minds;
And all sports! which for life’s restore, variety assigns.
Let all that sweet is, void! In me no mirth may dwell.
Philip, the cause of all this woe, my life’s content, farewell!
Now rhyme, the son of rage, which art no kin to skill;
And endless grief which deads my life, yet knows not how to kill:
Go, seek that hapless tomb! which if ye hap to find;
Salute the stones that keep the limbs that held so good a mind.
FINIS