May not the honours, which his sword hath won,
Read, graved on paper by a poet's pen,
When marble monuments are dust, and when
Time has eat off his paint and lettered gold;
440For verse alone keeps honour out o' th' mould?
The press successively gives birth to verse,
Shall steely tombs outlive the buckram hearse?
To other things the same proportion hold
Pure rhymes which lofty volumes do enfold.
Autumnal frosts would nip the double rose,