To His Peculiar Friend, Mr. Thomas Shapcott, Lawyer.

I've paid thee what I promis'd; that's not all; Besides I give thee here a verse that shall (When hence thy circummortal part is gone), Arch-like, hold up thy name's inscription. Brave men can't die, whose candid actions are Writ in the poet's endless calendar: Whose vellum and whose volume is the sky, And the pure stars the praising poetry. Farewell