A PINDARIQVE ELEGY On the most Famous and Learned PHYSICIAN D R. WILLIS  

1.  
POor mortal dust! how we admire  
The sparkling, vital fire,  
That like a silent Taper under ground,  
Goes out as soon as found;  
No sooner has the Teeming womb,  
Prepared her burden for another room,  
But now the Infant's born, and cries,  
Complains a little while, and dies.  
The wearied Patriarches at last,  
After so many hundred years were passed,  
Laid down their aged heads,  
Tired with their numerous days, in their original beds.   

2.  
Swaddled with cares, we come  
From the dark prison of the womb,  
Where we half smothered lay  
Till rescued by a beam of day;  
And here the world presents  
Infectious Elements,  
To converse with the stranger, till  
They bring him to his fatal Ill  
With much ado, much pains, and strife,  
We run the Gauntlet in this wretched life,  
On each side stands the merci'lesse throng,  
To scourge us as we run along,  
And after we have almost spent our breath,  
Are racked at last, by some slow lingering pain to death.   

3.  
And now great death has got the start  
Of thee, and thy so powerful art;  
Yet thou like the great Champion of the age,  
Once quel'st the Tyrants rage,  
And whilst he triumphed didst control,  
Redeemest the trembling, captive soul;  
Nature, and torment, both obey,  
And to the saving medicine give way;  
Thou'dst dispossess, and Cure  
The shivering Ague, and the burning Galenture,  
Consumptions, Fevers, Gripe, Stone  
That makes the tortured Patient groan;  
With all the numerous host  
Of torments, that the body still accost;  
Thou'dst stretch life's little span,  
Cast out the mighty Legion, and restore the man.   

4.  
Can either Art, or Nature save  
Thee, from the gulf, the grave,  
Or change the constant course of fate,  
Make it revoke th' unalterable date;  
Can all the treasures of Philosophy,  
Defeat the mighty Destiny,  
Or with its pleasant, golden fruit,  
Stop Fates swift chariot in the fierce pursuit;  
Can aught that's mortal  revoke,  
This Fatal, Universal stroke;  
Obstruct Heaven to dispense,  
Or dart again from hence,  
To the infectious Stars their poy'snous influence.   

5.  
The 〈◊〉 thy art thou wouldst renew,  
And still extend the fatal Clue;  
We than had seen engrossed in thee  
Learning's Monopoly.  
The Microcosm thou sailest round,  
Discover'st things before unfound,  
And thy great wisdom understood  
The circling Ocean of the blood,  
And by its working looks, (and more  
Than has been known before,)  
Telsed when the tempest's near,  
And nature's out of order there;  
The vital Bellows couldst repair,  
When injured by infectious air.  
Thou keep'st the soul within, when like a wind  
(which struggles when confined,)  
It strives to scape, and leave the desolate Corpse behind.   

6.  
Thou knewest the wondrous art,  
And order of each part  
In the whole lump, how every sense  
Contributes to the healths defence;  
The several channels, which convey  
The vital current every way;  
Track'st wise nature every where,  
In every region, every sphere,  
Fathom'st the mystery,  
Of deep Anatomy;  
Th' unactive carcase thou hast prayed upon,  
And stripped it to a Sceleton,  
But now (alas!) the art is gone,  
And now on thee,  
The crawling worms experience their Anatomy.   

7.  
What though the rever'end head,  
Is laid among the vulgar dead,  
And the clear sparkling light,  
O'ercast with death and night,  
Thou liest to Kings in equal state,  
In the sad common bed of fate:  
As soaring Comets ne'er decline,  
But in sublimer regions shine,  
After a while the frail, and fainty blaze,  
At which the lower, wondering world did gaze,  
As well as the low, grosser flame,  
That from the base Dunghill came,  
Does faint, and die,  
For want of fuel the devouring flame to ply.   

8.  
When thy young, unfledged fame did first peep out,  
It hovered round its native nest about,  
Till by a frequent use at last,  
It o'er the neighbouring Regions passed;  
At length it round the Globe did fly,  
With whom like the dear Twins 'twill live and die;  
We thought thy age should ne'er find date,  
But placed above the reach of Fate.  
The Silence, and disorders of the grave,  
The bravest Monarch can enslave,  
And Crowns, and Sceptres can out brave,  
And though the sacred Corpse is crushed,  
And the loud Organ hushed,  
Yet the sprightly virtue soars on high,  
And lifts its lofty Shoulders to Eternity.   

9  
Was nothing seen beneath the Bow?  
No Pageantry of Nature now?  
Don't she provide, or bring,  
A funeral offering?  
Yes! look but on the neighbouring shore,  
Where his brisk fame had flown before,  
Where she hath laid her brackish store;  
As if a common stock could not suffice,  
Let through the sluices of their eyes,  
But they must float on brinish waves,  
And weep o'er their own watery graves.  
Nothing in Nature too, but doth comply,  
And bear a part in this sad, Universal Harmony.   

10.  
Look how the long-lived plant, which now  
To fatal Autumn scorned to bow,  
Hangs down its drooping, dying Head,  
Upon its desolate Bed;  
The copious Garden too, is little less,  
Then a disor'derd Wilderness;  
No Vegetable will subsist,  
But takes its Autumn with the Herbalist;  
And seems too Sensitive,  
When no man knows its Virtue, hates to live.  
Hark, how each Dead, Obdurate thing,  
Whispers a sigh, and makes a doleful Din,  
As if it felt the mortal sting.  
See how each College mourns, the Stones  
Even Sympathise with us, sweat tears, & Echo groans.   

11.  
But since thou'rt gone, Great Soul, and left us here  
Wand'ring in this dusky Sphere,  
That without conduct, without guide  
Are carried with the swift tide  
Of the mad age beside;  
At every little gust we fear,  
To be transported there,  
To the so fatal, rocky shore,  
Whence we return no more,  
After this slumber thou wilt rise,  
With active limbs, and open eyes,  
As young, and airy, as before.  
The mouldered Atoms, that do lie  
Huddled up in obscurity,  
Shall put on Jmmortality:  
And all rude ashes couched within this Ball,  
Shall forthwith muster at th' Almighty's thundering Call.   

12.  
Mean while thou liv'st, and lodgest here,  
Although thou'rt quartered there,  
Thou breathest, and speakest even every where,  
Art young, and brisk, and flourish'st all the year;  
Thy Famous Volumes are the breath,  
By which thou dost survive thy death;  
Each Sacred, Living Page,  
Turns over with the age;  
This's the Asylum, this the place,  
For him whom great Diseases chase,  
Thine is the truly Fortunate book,  
In which who ere shall look,  
Shall find all true it does divine,  
And read long life in every line.  
It lies beyond the rage,  
Of the ungrateful age,  
Beyond the short-lived, dull Mortality,  
Within the sacred Archives of Eternity.   
FINIS.