Epitaph On Sir Palmes Fairbone's Tomb In Westminster Abbey.

A poem by John Dryden

Sacred To The Immortal Memory Of Sir Palmes Fairbone, Knight, Governor Of Tangier; In Execution Of Which Command, He Was Mortally Wounded By A Shot From The Moors, Then Besieging The Town, In The Forty-Sixth Year Of His Age. October 24, 1680.


Ye sacred relics, which your marble keep,
Here, undisturb'd by wars, in quiet sleep:
Discharge the trust, which, when it was below,
Pairbone's undaunted soul did undergo,
And be the town's Palladium from the foe.
Alive and dead these walls he will defend:
Great actions great examples must attend.
The Candian siege his early valour knew,
Where Turkish blood did his young hands imbrue.
From thence returning with deserved applause,
Against the Moors his well-flesh'd sword he draws;
The same the courage, and the same the cause.
His youth and age, his life and death, combine,
As in some great and regular design,
All of a piece throughout, and all divine.
Still nearer heaven his virtues shone more bright,
Like rising flames expanding in their height;
The martyr's glory crown'd the soldier's fight.
More bravely British general never fell,
Nor general's death was e'er revenged so well;
Which his pleased eyes beheld before their close,
Follow'd by thousand victims of his foes.
To his lamented loss for time to come
His pious widow consecrates this tomb.