AN ELEGIE,
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MY LATE HONOURED FRIEND,
COLLONELL RICHARD LOVELACE.
Pardon (blest shade), that I thus crowd to be
'Mong those that sin unto thy memory,
And that I think unvalu'd reliques spread,
And am the first that pillages the dead;
Since who would be thy mourner as befits,
But an officious sacriledge commits.
How my tears strive to do thee fairer right,
And from the characters divide my sight.
Untill it (dimmer) a new torrent swells,
And what obscur'd it, falls my spectacles
Let the luxurious floods impulsive rise,
As they would not be wept, but weep the eyes,
The while earth melts, and we above it lye
But the weak bubbles of mortalitie;
Until our griefs are drawn up by the Sun,
And that (too) drop the exhalation.
How in thy dust we humble now our pride,
And bring thee a whole people mortifi'd!
For who expects not death, now thou art gone,
Shows his low folly, not religion.
Can the poetick heaven still hold on
The golden dance, when the first mover's gon?
And the snatch'd fires (which circularly hurl'd)
In their strong rapture glimmer to the world,
And not stupendiously rather rise
The tapers unto these solemnities?
Can the chords move in tune, when thou dost dye,
At once their universal harmony?
But where Apollo's harp (with murmur) laid,
Had to the stones a melody convey'd,
They by some pebble summon'd would reply
In loud results to every battery;
Thus do we come unto thy marble room,
To eccho from the musick of thy tombe.
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