The allegory was not finished: at least it is lost to us. We have but a fragment more, the last fragment of his poetry. It expresses the great commonplace which so impressed itself on the men of that time, and of which his works are full. No words could be more appropriate to be the last words of one who was so soon to be in his own person such an instance of their truth. They are fit closing words to mark his tragic and pathetic disappearance from the high and animated scene in which his imagination worked. And they record, too, the yearning hope of rest not extinguished by terrible and fatal disaster:— When I bethinke me on that speech whyleare Me seemes, that though she all unworthy were Whose flowring pride, so fading and so fickle, Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle. Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd, Of that same time when no more Change shall be, Upon the pillours of Eternity, That is contrayr to Mutabilitie; For all that moveth doth in Change delight: But thence-forth all shall rest eternally With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight: O! that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoths sight. THE END. |