'She reach'd a rosebud from the tree, And bit the tip and threw it by; My little rose, for you and me The worst is over when we die!'
But, then, the epigraph is never lyrical. It belongs to the order of reflective poetry, and consists of a single thought, expressed with as much brevity and grace as possible. A common form of it is the epitaph; another is the inscription; while at other times the poets have used it for the purpose of enshrining some occasional or isolated utterance.
The thoroughly successful epitaphs--at once short, and wholly poetical in expression--are among the most famous and popular things in literature. Who does not remember the admirable tribute to 'Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother'--usually ascribed to Ben Jonson, but sometimes attributed to Browne? Jonson penned an epitaph on 'Elizabeth L. H.,' which would have been exquisite had it consisted only of the following:
'Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die; Which, in life, did harbour give To more virtue than doth live.'
Even as they stand, the lines, as a whole, may fairly compare with those on Lady Pembroke. How happy Pope was in his epitaphs is familiarly known. The art was just that in which he might naturally be expected to excel. The time-honoured couplet on Newton need not be quoted: the 'octave' on Sir Godfrey Kneller is most notable for the final bit of hyperbole:
'Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie Her works, and, dying, fears herself may die.'
And, talking of epitaphs, one is reminded of the quaint comment by Sir Henry Wotton 'On the Death of Sir A. Morton's Wife':
'He first deceased; she, for a little, tried To live without him, liked it not, and died'--
surely a piece of work as nearly as possible perfect in its way. In the matter of inscriptions, we have, of course, that by Ben Jonson on Shakespeare's portrait, and that by Dryden under Milton's picture--the last-named being by no means deserving of its reputation. We have also the well-known lines by Pope, 'written on glass with Lord Chesterfield's diamond pencil;' the equally well-known sentence on Rogers by Lord Holland; and the less-hackneyed and even more flattering couplet composed by Lord Lyttelton for Lady Suffolk's bust (erected in a wood at Stowe):
