Hail, pensive Fairfax, Learning's Hermitage,
To whose dark Cell (secluded from the Age)
The Arts retir'd, and dwelt there long unknown,
Shunning all conversation but their own.
Man is a walking shadow, such, in show,
Thou did'st appear, though far from being so;
For Nature, underneath that dark disguize,
Veil'd her more subtle light from common Eies,
Which, when thou spok'st, broke from the sable shrowd
(Yet without noise) like lightning through a Cloud.
Little in men, in Science deeply read,
None lesse then thee the living knew, none more, the Dead.
Thou to inform my Childhood didst descend,
And the same care unto my Youth extend;
Language and Sciences thou didst bestow,
First taught me how to speak, and then to know.
Years, that insensibly-successive glide,
Rais'd me at last to Manhood, Thou my Guide.
Then what before Instruction us'd to be
Grew by degrees into Society.
With scrutiny the Greeks we often vext,
And disentangled oft the Romane Text;
The old Philosophers we did excite
To quarrell, whilst we smil'd to see the fight:
Some serious hours Historians did divide,
Our mirthfull by the Poets were supply'd.
All these are dead with thee, whose active mind,
Alass! was within Walls so thin confin'd,
That the impatient fire devour'd the Clay,
And melted through resisting clouds its way
To that bright Sphere, from which it star-like shot;
Though born on Earth, souls are in Heav'n begot.