He, finding in his hands His life-desire possest, fell not in gloom, Nor froth’d in vanity: his Sabbath earn’d He look’d to spend in meditative rest: So laying chisel by, he took a pen To tell his story to his countrymen, And prove (he did it) that the flower of all, Rarest to attain, is in the power of all. _LAWRENCE_ Yet nought he ever made, that I have learn’d, In wood or stone deserved, nay not his best, The Greek or Tuscan name for beautiful. ’Twas level with its praise, had force to pull Favour from fashion. _RICHARD_ Yet he made one thing Worthy of the lily city in her spring; For while in vain the forms of beauty he aped, A perfect spirit in himself he shaped; And all his lifetime doing less than well Where he profess’d nor doubted to excel, Now, where he had no scholarship, but drew His art from love, ’twas better than he knew: And when he sat to write, lo! by him stood The heavenly Muse, who smiles on all things good; And for his truth’s sake, for his stainless mind, His homely love and faith, she now grew kind, And changed the crown, that from the folk he got, For her green laurel, and he knew it not. _LAWRENCE_ Ah! Love of Beauty! This man then mistook Ambition for her? _RICHARD_ In simplicity Erring he kept his truth; and in his book The statue of his grace is fair to see. _LAWRENCE_ Then buried with their great he well may be. _RICHARD_ And number’d with the saints, not among them Who painted saints. Join we his requiem. ECLOGUE III FOURTH OF JUNE AT ETON _RICHARD AND GODFREY_ _RICHARD_ Beneath the wattled bank the eddies swarm In wandering dimples o’er the shady pool: The same their chase as when I was at school; The same the music, where in shallows warm The current, sunder’d by the bushy isles, Returns to join the main, and struggles free Above the willows, gurgling thro’ the piles: Nothing is changed, and yet how changed are we! —What can bring Godfrey to the Muses’ bower? _GODFREY_ What but brings you? The festal day of the year; To live in boyish memories for an hour; See and be seen: tho’ you come seldom here. _RICHARD_ Dread of the pang it was, fear to behold What once was all myself, that kept me away. _GODFREY_ You miss new pleasures coveting the old. _RICHARD_ They need have prudence, who in courage lack; ’Twas that I might go on I looked not back. _GODFREY_ Of all our company he, who, we say, Fruited the laughing flower of liberty! _RICHARD_ Ah! had I my desire, so should it be. _GODFREY_ Nay, but I know this melancholy mood: ’Twas your poetic fancy when a boy. _RICHARD_