1. There are people dead whilst still alive through memory of them,
And there are living sound while among folk they're dead.

2. So he who's dead, his virtues still fresh in men's minds,
Is a dead man blest by religion—the perfectest life was his!

3. And he who walks about when his fame is dead and gone,
Is most foolish, has wasted his faith—and his life is done.

4. I will strike similitudes for whoso of reason makes use,
Whereby to walk aright my lay before him I'll lay plain;

5. Never have the rhymes been silent in my tribe of him
Who as just judge decides, firm-set, and speaker right fain;

6. The smooth, safe earth bears not the serpent kind right glad—
You shall see it its foes hate-swollen belly rip and tear.