Yet, since it was decreed, thy life's bright Sun Must be eclips'd ere thy full course was run, Be proud thou didst, in thy black obsequies, With greater glory set, than others rise. 70 For in thy death, as life, thou heldest one Most just and regular proportion. Look how the circles drawn by compass meet Indivisibly joined, head to feet, And by continued points which them unite, Grow at once circular and infinite: So did thy Fate and Honour now contend To match thy brave beginning with thy end. Therefore thou hadst, instead of passing bells, The drums' and cannons' thunder for thy knells; 80 And in the field thou didst triumphing die, Closing thy eyelids with a victory: That so by thousands who there lost their breath, King-like thou might'st be waited on in death. Lived Plutarch now, and would of Caesar tell, He could make none but Thee his parallel; Whose tide of glory, swelling to the brim, Needs borrow no addition from him. 90 When did great Julius, in any clime, Achieve so much, and in so small a time? Or if he did, yet shalt Thou in that land Single, for him, and unexampled stand. When o'er the Germans first his Eagle towr'd, What saw the legions which on them he pour'd? But massy bodies, made their swords to try, Subjects, not for his fight, but slavery. In that so vast expanded piece of ground (Now Sweden's theatre and tomb), he found 100 Nothing worth Caesar's valour or his fear, No conqu'ring army, nor a Tilly there, Whose strength, nor wiles, nor practice in the war Might the fierce torrent of thy triumphs bar, But that thy winged sword twice made him yield, Both from his trenches beat, and from the field.
Besides, the Roman thought he had done much, Did he the bank of Rhenus only touch. But though his march was bounded by the Rhine, Not Oder nor the Danube thee confine; 110 And, but thy frailty did thy fame prevent, Thou hadst thy conquests stretch'd to such extent, Thou might'st Vienna reach, and after span From Mulda to the Baltic Ocean.
But death hath spann'd thee: nor must we divine What heir thou leav'st to finish thy design, Or who shall thee succeed, as champion For liberty and for religion.
Thy task is done; as in a watch, the spring, Wound to the height, relaxes with the string: 120 So thy steel nerves of conquest, from their steep Ascent declin'd, lie slack'd in thy last sleep.