ELEGY

On the marriage of my dear friend Mr. Jinks

(but which may with equal aptness be applied

to the marriage of many other gentlemen)

I

Ye nymphs whose beauties all your hills

                Adorn,

Embodied graces of the sun‑traced rills,

                Mourn;

For gentle Corydon henceforth,

In this hard world where all must pass,

Will feel as icy as the North.

                Alas!

II

        Ah, Corydon! Ah, Corydon!

        And hast thou left all happiness,

        Immoraled joy and whiskied liberty?

                Ah, Corydon!

        Great is our distress.

        And art thou no more free?

Bars shall be useless now. Alas! in vain

The music‑hall shall ring with voices known,

In vain the horse shall course the plain

        And the struck sparrer groan.

        And dogs and beasts and women,

        And brandy, gin and wine,

        And brutish brutes and human ­-

Oh, say, shall all these joys no more be thine?

lll

        Ah, frailness of mankind!

Thou who didst laugh at woman and didst hold

Thyself superior, now, alas! wilt find,

Amid thy waning joy and waning gold,

        Thou learnedst in a sorry school

        That taught thee to disdain

The seeming‑tender being whose dread rule

Shall now wreak on thee horrid pain.

        Too late now wilt thou learn, too late,

        When thy voice is low and humble thy gait,

        When thy soul is crushed and thy dress sedate,

The greatest of all ills the gods on humans rain.

IV

Ah, what avails all mourning? Thou art gone

From life and youth and gaudy loveliness,

From that deep rest that men call drunkenness.

        Ah, Corydon! Ah, Corydon!

        Thou the first hope of all our race

Hast left the blessed paths of peace and love.

        Ah, wilt thou be content to rove

From shop to shop with her, thy mother‑in‑law,

        Or tremble full to hear at night,

        With horror deep and deep affright.

The wordy torrent from thy spouse's jaw?

V

Oh, the troubles to come to thee can ever I dare name?

To work in the day, and at night to walk the bedroom's length,

On a seeming‑heavy baby to waste thy seeming‑waning strength,

And as the husband of thy wife to reach the light of fame.

Now my voice is broke with weeping, and mine eyes red, as with sand,

And my spirit worn with sighing, and with sighing worn my breast ­

Ah, farewell, that thou art gone now to the dreaded obscure land

Where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary never rest.