"Lie lightly on my ashes, gentle earth."
The time when Prior wrote his beautiful Ode to the Memory of Colonel George Villiers, drowned in the river Piave, in Friuli, 1703, is so near the period in which Mr Pope composed his elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady, that it is difficult to say which of these great men borrowed from the other. It appears certain, however, that one of them, in the following lines, was indebted to his friend, unless it can be supposed that both of them were obliged to the above line of Beaumont and Fletcher. Prior says—
"Lay the dead hero graceful in a grave
(The only honour he can now receive),
And fragrant mould upon his body throw.
And plant the warrior laurel o'er his brow;
Light lie the earth, and flourish green the bough."
Mr Pope writes thus—
"What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb;
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest,
And thy green turf lie lightly on thy breast."
I know not why we should suppose that Pope borrowed from Prior, or that either of them was indebted to Beaumont and Fletcher on this occasion. Sit tibi terra levis! is a wish expressed in many of the ancient Roman inscriptions. So in that on Pylades—
"Dicite qui legitis, solito de more, sepulto,
Pro meritis, Pylade, sit tibi terra levis!"
Again, in the sepulchral dialogue supposed to pass between Atimetus and Homonœa—
"Sit tibi terra levis, mulier dignissima vita!"
Again, in Propertius, El. xvii. lib. 1—