University of Virginia Library

Can we not force from widowed Poetrie
Now thou art dead (Great Donne) one Elegie,
To crowne thy Hearse? Why yet did we not trust,
Though with unkneaded dow-bak'd prose, thy dust,
Such as th'uncizard Lect'rer from the flower
Of fading Rhet'rique, short-liv'd as his houre,
Drie as the sand that measures it, might lay
Vpon the ashes, on the Funerall day?
Have we nor tune, nor voyce? didst thou dispence
Through all our languge both the words and sence?
'Tis a sad truth. The Pulpit may her plaine,
And sober Christian precepts still retaine,
Doctrines it may, and wholsome uses, frame,
Grave Homilies, and Lectures, but the flame
Of thy brave soule, that shot such heat, and light,
As burnt our Earth, and made our darknesse bright,
Committed holy rapes upon the will,
Did through the eye the melting heart distill.
And the deepe knowledge, of darke truths, so teach
As sence might judge what fancy could not reach,
Must be desir'd for ever. So the fire
That fills with spirit and heare the Delphique Quire,
Which kindled first by thy Promethean breath
Glow'd here awhile, lyes quencht now in thy death.
The Muses garden, with Pedantique weedes
O're-spread, was purg'd by thee, the lazie seeds
Of servile imitation throwne away,
And fresh invention planted; thou did'st pay
The debts of our penurious banqueront Age:
Licentious thefts, that make poetique rage
A mimique furie, when our soules must be
Possest, or with Anacreons extasie,
Or Pindars, not their owne, the subtle cheate
Of slie exchanges, and the jugling feate
Of two-edg'd words, or whatsoever wrong
By ours was done the Greeke or Latine tongue,
Thou hast redeem'd, and Opened us a Mine
Of rich and pregnant fancie, drawne a line
Of Masculine expression, which had good
Old Orpheus seene, or all the ancient brood
Our superstitious fooles admire, and hold
Their Leade more precious then thy burnisht gold,
Thou hadst beene their Exchequer, and no more,
They each in others dung had search'd for Ore.
Thou shalt yeeld no precedence, but of Time,
And the blind fate of Language, whose tun'd chime
More charmes the outward sense; yet thou mayst claime
From so great disadvantage, greater fame,
Since to the awe of thy imperious wit
Our trouble some language bends, made only fit
With her tough thick-rib'd hoopes, to gird about
Thy Gyant fancie, which had prov'd too stout
For their soft melting phrases. As in time
They had the start, so did they call the prime
Buds of invention many a hundred yeare,
And left the rifled fields, besides the feare
To touch their harvest, yet from those bare lands
Of what was onely thine, thy onely hands
(And that their smallest worke) have gleaned more
Then all those times, and Tongues, could reape before.

But thou art gone, and thy strickt lawes will be
Too hard for Libertines in Poetrie,
They will recall the goodly exil'd ttaine:
Of Gods, and Goddesses, which in thy just raigne
Was banisht nobler Poems; now, with these,
The silenc'd tales i'th' Metamorphoses
Shall stuffe their lines, and swell the windie page
Till verse refin'd by thee, in this last Age
Turne Ballad-rime, or those old Idols be
Ador'd againe with new Apostasie.

Oh! pardon me that breake with untun'd Verse
The reverend silence, that attends thy Hearse,
Whose solemne, awfull Murmurs, were to thee
More then these rude lines, a loude Elegie,
That did proclaime in a dumbe Eloquence
The death of all the Arts, whose influence
Growne feeble, in these panting numbers lyes
Gasping short-winded accents, and so dyes
So doth the swiftly-turning wheele, not stand
In th'instant we withdraw the moving hand,
But some short time retaine a faint weake course,
By vertue of the first impulsive force;
And so, whilst I cast on thy funerall Pile,
Thy crowne of Bayes, oh let it crack awhile
And spit disdaine, till the devouring flashes
Suck all the moysture up, then turne to ashes,

I will not draw the envy, to engrosse
All thy perfections, or weepe all the losse,
Those are too numerous for one Elegie,
And this too great to be exprest by me.
Let others carve the rest; it shall suffize,
I on thy Grave this Epitaph incize.
Here lyes a King, that rul'd as he thought fit
The Vniversall Monarchie of wit,
Here lyes two Flamens, and both those the best,
Apollo's first, at last the true God's Priest.