Funeral Elegy

Excerpt-55 Those noble twins of heaven-infused races,
Learning and wit, refined in their kind
Did jointly both, in their peculiar graces,
Enrich the curious temple of his mind;
Indeed a temple, in whose precious white
60 Sat reason by religion overswayed,
Teaching his other senses, with delight,
How piety and zeal should be obeyed.
Not fruitlessly in prodigal expense
Wasting his best of time, but so content
65 With reason's golden mean to make defense
Against the assault of youth's encouragement;
As not the tide of this surrounding age
(When now his father's death had freed his will)
Could make him subject to the drunken rage
70 Of such whose only glory is their ill.
He from the happy knowledge of the wise
Draws virtue to reprove secured fools
And shuns the glad sleights of ensnaring vice
To spend his spring of days in sacred schools.
75 Here gave he diet to the sick desires
That day by day assault the weaker man,
And with fit moderation still retires