University of Virginia Library

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15

On the memory of Mr. Edward King drown'd in the Irish Seas.

I like not teares in tune, nor do I prize
His artificiall griefe who scans his eyes,
Mine weep downe pious beads, but why should I
Confine them to the Muses Rosary?
I am no Poet here; my pen's the spout
Where the Raine-water of mine eyes run out
In pitty of that Name, whose fate we see
Thus copied out his griefes Hydrography:
The Muses are not Mair-maids, though upon
His death the Ocean might turn Helicon.
The Sea's too rough for verse; who rhimes upon't
With Xerxes strives to feter th'Helespont.
My tears will keep no channell, know no laws
To guide the streames; but (like the waves their cause)
Run with disturbance, til they swallow me
As a description of his misery.
But can his spatious virtue find a grave
Within th'imposthum'd bubble of a wave?
Whose learning if we sound, we must confesse
The Sea but shallow, and him bottomelesse,
Could not the wind to counter-maid thy death,
With the whole card of lungs redeem thy breath?
Or some new Island in thy rescue peep,
To heave thy resurrection from the deep!
That so the world might see thy safety wrought,
With no lesse wonder then thy selfe was thought.

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16

The famous Stagarite, who in his life
Had nature as familiar as his wife,
Bequeath'd his Widow to survive with thee
Queen Dowager of Philosophy:
An ominous Legacy that did protend
Thy fate and predecessors second end:
Some have affirm'd, that what on earth we find
The Sea can paralell in shape and kind:
Books, arts, and tongues were wanting, but in thee
Neptune hath got an University.