Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EPITAPH ON SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, by FULKE GREVILLE


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EPITAPH ON SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage
Last Line: Salute the stones that keep the lims that held so good a minde.
Alternate Author Name(s): Brooke, 1st Baron; Brooke, Lord
Variant Title(s): Epitaph Of Sir Philip Sidney;an Epitaph Upon The Right Honorable Sir Philip Sidney;an Elegy On Sir Philip Sidney
Subject(s): Sidney, Sir Philip (1554-1586)


SILENCE augmenteth grief, writing encreaseth rage;
Stald are my thoughts, which lov'd, and lost, the wonder of our age;
Yet quickned now with fire, though dead with frost ere now,
Enrag'de I write, I know not what: dead, quick, I know not how.

Hard harted mindes relent, and Rigors teares abound,
And Envie strangely rues his end, in whom no fault she found;
Knowledge her light hath lost, Valor hath slaine her knight,
Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the worlds delight.

Place pensive wailes his fall, whose presence was her pride;
Time crieth out, 'My ebbe is come: his life was my spring tide;'
Fame mournes in that she lost the ground of her reports;
Ech living wight laments his lacke, and all in sundry sorts.

He was (wo worth that word!) to ech well thinking minde,
A spotlesse friend, a matchles man, whose vertue ever shinde,
Declaring in his thoughts, his life, and that he writ,
Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit.

He, onely like himselfe, was second unto none,
Whose deth (though life) we rue, and wrong, and al in vain do mone;
Their losse, not him, waile they that fill the world with cries;
Death slue not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.

Now sinke of sorrow I, who live, the more the wrong,
Who wishing death, whom Deth denies, whose thred is al to long,
Who tied to wretched life, who lookes for no reliefe,
Must spend my ever dying daies in never ending griefe.

Harts ease and onely I like parallels run on,
Whose equall length keep equall bredth, and never meet in one;
Yet for not wronging him, my thoughts, my sorrowes cell,
Shall not run out, though leake they will, for liking him so well.

Farewell to you, my hopes, my wonted waking dreames,
Farewell, sometimes enjoyed joy, eclipsed are thy beames,
Farewell selfe pleasing thoughts, which quietnes brings foorth,
And farewel friendships sacred league, uniting minds of woorth.

And farewell mery hart, the gift of guiltlesse mindes,
And all sports which, for lives restore, varietie assignes;
Let all that sweete is voyd; in me no mirth may dwell;
Phillip, the cause of all this woe, my lives content, farewell!

Now Rime, the sonne of Rage, which art no kin to Skill,
And endles Griefe, which deads my life, yet knowes not how to kill,
Go seeke that haples tombe; which if ye hap to finde,
Salute the stones that keep the lims that held so good a minde.






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