For what is life, if measured by the space
      Not by the act? 
Or masked man, if valued by his face,
      Above his fact? 
   Here’s one outlived his peers,
   And told forth fourscore years;
   He vexed time, and busied the whole state;
      Troubled both foes and friends;
      But ever to no ends: 
   What did this stirrer but die late? 
How well at twenty had he fallen or stood! 
For three of his fourscore he did no good.

II.

THE TURN

He entered well, by virtuous parts,
Got up, and thrived with honest arts;
He purchased friends, and fame, and honours then,
And had his noble name advanced with men: 
But weary of that flight,
He stooped in all men’s sight
To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,
And sunk in that dead sea of life,
So deep, as he did then death’s waters sup,
But that the cork of title buoyed him up.

THE COUNTER-TURN

Alas! but Morison fell young: 
He never fell,—­thou fall’st, my tongue. 
He stood a soldier to the last right end,
A perfect patriot, and a noble friend;
But most, a virtuous son. 
All offices were done
By him, so ample, full, and round,
In weight, in measure, number, sound,
As, though his age imperfect might appear,
His life was of humanity the sphere.

THE STAND

Go now, and tell out days summed up with fears,
      And make them years;
Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage,
      To swell thine age;
   Repeat of things a throng,
   To show thou hast been long,
Not lived:  for life doth her great actions spell. 
   By what was done and wrought
   In season, and so brought
To light:  her measures are, how well
Each syllabe answered, and was formed, how fair;
These make the lines of life, and that’s her air!

III.

THE TURN

   It is not growing like a tree
   In bulk, doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear: 
      A lily of a day,
      Is fairer far in May,
   Although it fall and die that night;
   It was the plant, and flower of light. 
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.

THE COUNTER-TURN

   Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
   And let thy looks with gladness shine: 
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head
And think, nay know, thy Morison’s not dead
      He leaped the present age,
      Possessed with holy rage
   To see that bright eternal day;
   Of which we priests and poets say,
Such truths, as we expect for happy men: 
And there he lives with memory and Ben.