University of Virginia Library

Elegie, 2.

[Talbot is dead. Like lightning which no part]

Talbot is dead. Like lightning which no part
Oth' body touches, but first strikes the heart,
This word hath murder'd me. Ther's not in all
The stocke of sorrow, any charme can call
Death sooner up. For musiqu's in the breath
Of thunder, and a sweetenesse even ith' death
That brings with it, if you with this compare
All the loude noyses, which torment the ayre.
They cure (Physitians say) the element
Sicke with dull vapors, and to banishment
Confine infections; but this fatall shreeke,
Without the least redresse, is utter'd like
The last dayes summons, when Earths trophies lye
A scatter'd heape, and time it selfe must dye.
What now hath life to boast of? Can I have
A thought lesse darke than th' horror of the grave
Now thou dost dwell below? Wer't not a fault
Past pardon, to raise fancie 'bove thy vault?
Hayle Sacred house in which his reliques sleepe!
Blest marble give me leave t' approach and weepe,
These vowes to thee! for since great Talbot's gone
Downe to thy silence, I commerce with none
But thy pale people: and in that confute
Mistaking man, that dead men are not mute.
Delicious beauty, lend thy flatter'd eare
Accustom'd to warme whispers, and thou'lt heare
How their cold language tels thee, that thy skin
Is but a beautious shrine, in which black sin
Is Idoliz'd; thy eyes but Spheares where lust
Hath its loose motion; and thy end is dust.
Great Atlas of the state, descend with me,
But hither, and this vault shall furnish thee
With more aviso's, then thy costly spyes,
And show how false are all those mysteries
Thy Sect receives, and though thy pallace swell
With envied pride, 'tis here that thou must dwell.
It will instruct you, Courtier, that your Art
Of outward smoothnesse and a rugged heart
But cheates your selfe, and all those subtill wayes
You tread to greatnesse, is a fatall maze
Where you your selfe shall loose, for though you breath
Vpward to pride, your center is beneath.
And 'twill thy Rhetorick false flesh confound;
Which flatters my fraile thoughts, no time can wound
This unarm'd frame. Here is true eloquence
Will teach my soule to triumph over sence,
Which hath its period in a grave, and there
Showes what are all our pompous surfets here.
Great Orator! deare Talbot! Still, to thee
May I an auditor attentive be:
And piously maintaine the same commerce
We held in life! and if in my rude verse
I to the world may thy sad precepts read;
I will on earth interpret for the dead.