For him, my friend, for him I moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.
Stretch'd on the bier Columbo lies,
Pale are his cheeks, and closed his eyes;
Those cheeks, where Beauty smiling lay,
Those eyes, where Love was used to play;
Ah! cruel Fate, alas! how soon
That beauty, and those joys are flown!
Columbo is no more: ye Floods,
Bear the sad sound to distant woods;
The sound let Echo's voice restore,
And say, Columbo is no more.
Ye Floods, ye Woods, ye Echoes, moan
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.
The Dryads all forsook the wood,
And mournful Naiads round me stood,
The tripping Fawns and Fairies came,
All conscious of our mutual flame,
To sigh for him, with me to moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.
Venus disdain'd not to appear,
To lend my grief a friendly ear;
But what avails her kindness now?
She ne'er shall hear my second vow:
The Loves, that round their mother flew,
Did in her face her sorrows view;
Their drooping wings they pensive hung,
Their arrows broke, their bows unstrung;
They heard attentive what I said,
And wept, with me, Columbo dead:
For him I sigh, for him I moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.
'Tis ours to weep, (great Venus said)
'Tis Jove's alone, to be obey'd;
Nor birds nor goddesses can move
The just behests of fatal Jove:
I saw thy mate with sad regret,
And cursed the fowler's cruel net;
Ah, dear Columbo, how he fell,
Whom Turturella loved so well!
I saw him bleeding on the ground,
The sight tore up my ancient wound!
And whilst you wept, alas! I cried,
Columbo and Adonis died.'
Weep, all ye Streams, ye Mountains, groan;
I mourn Columbo, dead and gone;
Still let my tender grief complain,
Nor day nor night that grief restrain;
I said, and Venus still replied,
'Columbo and Adonis died.'
S. Poor Turturella, hard thy case, And just thy tears, alas! alas!
T. And hast thou loved, and canst thou hear
With piteous heart a lover's care?
Come, then, with me thy sorrows join,
And ease my woes by telling thine;
For thou, poor bird, perhaps may'st moan
Some Passerella, dead and gone.
S. Dame Turtle, this runs soft in rhyme,
But neither suits the place nor time;
The fowler's hand, whose cruel care
For dear Columbo set the snare,
The snare again for thee may set;
Two birds may perish in one net :
Thou shouldst avoid this cruel field,
And sorrow should to prudence yield.
'Tis sad to die-
"Tis sadder yet to live in woe.
S. When widows use their canting strain, They seem resolved to wed again.
T. When widowers would this truth disprove, They never tasted real love.
S. Love is soft joy and gentle strife;
His efforts all depend on life :
When he has thrown two golden darts,
And struck the lovers' mutual hearts,
Of his black shafts let Death send one,
Alas! the pleasing game is done;
Ill is the poor survivor sped,
A corpse feels mighty cold in bed.
Venus said right, Nor tears can move,
Nor plaints revoke, the will of Jove.'
All must obey the general doom,
Down from Alcides to Tom Thumb.
Grim Pluto will not be withstood
By force or craft. Tall Robinhood,
As well as little John, is dead,
(You see how deeply I am read)
With Fate's lean tipstaff none can dodge,
He'll find you out where'er you lodge.
Ajax, to shun his general power,
In vain absconded in a flower:
An idle scene Tithonus acted,
When to a grasshopper contracted;
Death struck them in those shapes again,
As once he did when they were men.
For reptiles perish, plants decay;
Flesh is but grass, grass turns to hay,
And hay to dung, and dung to clay.
Thus heads extremely nice discover, That folks may die some ten times over; But oft, by too refined a touch,
To prove things plain, they prove too much.
Whate'er Pythagoras may say,
(For each, you know, will have his way)
With great submission I pronounce,
That people die no more than once:
But once is sure, and death is common
To bird and man, including woman:
From the spread eagle to the wren,
Alas! no mortal fowl knows when.
All that wear feathers, first or last,
Must one day perch on Charon's mast;
Must lie beneath the cypress shade,
Where Strada's nightingale was laid.
Those fowl who seem alive to sit,
Assembled by Dan Chaucer's wit,
In prose have slept three hundred years,
Exempt from worldly hopes and fears,
And, laid in state upon their hearse,
Are truly but embalm'd in verse.
As sure as Lesbia's Sparrow I,
Thou sure as Prior's Dove, must die;
And ne'er again from Lethe's streams
Return to Addua or to Thames.
T. I therefore weep Columbo dead,
My hopes bereaved, my pleasures fled;
I therefore must for ever moan
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.
S. Columbo never sees your tears,
Your cries Columbo never hears;
A wall of brass, and one of lead,
Divide the living from the dead :
Repell'd by this, the gather'd rain
Of tears beats back to earth again;
In t'other the collected sound
groans, when once received, is drown'd. 'Tis therefore vain one hour to grieve
What time itself can ne'er retrieve.
By nature soft, I know a dove
Can never live without her love;
Then quit this flame, and light another,
Dame, I advise you like a brother.
T. What, I to make a second choice!
In other nuptials to rejoice!
S. Why not, my bird?—
No, Sparrow, no;
Let me indulge my pleasing woe:
Thus sighing, cooing, ease my pain,
But never wish nor love again :
Distress'd, for ever let me moan
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.
S. Our winged friends, through all the grove, Contemn thy mad excess of love:
I tell thee, Dame, the other day
I met a parrot and a jay,
Who mock'd thee in their mimic tone,"
And wept Columbo, dead and gone.
T. Whate'er the jay or parrot said,
My hopes are lost, my joys are fled,
And I for ever must deplore
Columbo, dead and gone.—
S.
- Encore!
For shame, forsake this Bion-style ;
We'll talk an hour, and walk a mile.
Does it with sense or health agree,
To sit thus moping on a tree?
|