Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THOMAS STANLEY, RECOVERED OF THE SMALL-POX, by WILLIAM HAMMOND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THOMAS STANLEY, RECOVERED OF THE SMALL-POX, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Nature foreseeing that if thou wert gone
Last Line: Deface the woman in thee, not the man.
Subject(s): Healing; Small Pox; Stanley, Thomas (1625-1678); Cures


NATURE foreseeing that if thou wert gone,
And we her younger children left alone,
None could with virtue feed this beggar'd age,
For with the heir is gone, and heritage,
In pity longer lent us thee, that so
Thou might'st lead mankind, and teach how to go;
How to speak languages, to discourse how,
How the created book of things to know,
How with smooth cadence harsher verse to file,
Within soft numbers to confine a stile,
And lastly how to love a friend; for this
Lesson, the crown of human actions is.
Nor was't in pity to our state alone,
She, as all do, reflected on her own,
And gave thee longer breath, that our desire
Might learn of thine her beauty to admire;
Nor out of pity to thy youth, whose hearse
Not to thyself, but to the universe
Had shipwreck'd been; for thou hadst stood, being dead,
Above the sphere of being pitied.
Let then this thy redintegrated wreck
Not irksome be, if only for our sake,
For friendship is the greatest argument
Moves us to be from angels here content,
Yet one inducement more thy stay may plead,
That nature hath so clean thy prison made.
What though she pit thy skin? She only can
Deface the woman in thee, not the man.





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