YE Muses, pour the pitying tear
For Pollio snatch’d away;
O! had he liv’d another year!—
‘He had not died to-day’.
O! were he born to bless mankind,
In virtuous times of yore,
Heroes themselves had fallen behind!—
‘Whene’er he went before’.
How sad the groves and plains appear,
And sympathetic sheep;
Even pitying hills would drop a tear!—
‘If hills could learn to weep’.
His bounty in exalted strain
Each bard might well display;
Since none implor’d relief in vain!—
‘That went reliev’d away’.
And hark! I hear the tuneful throng
His obsequies forbid,
He still shall live, shall live as long!—
‘As ever dead man did’.
(Oliver Goldsmith)
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