A Great Man

Ye muses, pour the pitying tear
      For Pollio snatch’d away:
  For had he liv’d another year!
      —He had not dy’d to-day.

O, were he born to bless mankind,
      In virtuous times of yore,
  Heroes themselves had fallen behind!
      —Whene’er he went before.

How sad the groves and plains appear,
      And sympathetic sheep:
  Even pitying hills would drop a tear!
      —If hills could learn to weep.

His bounty in exalted strain
      Each bard might well display:
  Since none implor’d relief in vain!
      —That went reliev’d away.

And hark! I hear the tuneful throng;
      His obsequies forbid.
  He still shall live, shall live as long
      —As ever dead man did.

Oliver Goldsmith.