Thou knew'st right well to guide the warlike steed,
And yet could'st court the Muses with full speed
And such success, that the inspiring Nine
Have fill'd their Thespian fountain so with brine.
Henceforth we can expect no lyrick lay,
But biting satyres through the world must stray.
Bellona joyns with fair Erato too,
And with the Destinies do keep adoe,
Whom thus she queries: could not you awhile
Reprieve his life, until another file
Of poems such as these had been drawn up?
The fates reply'd that thou wert taken up,
A sacrifice unto the deities;
Since things most perfect please their holy eyes,
And that no other victim could be found
With so much learning and true virtue crown'd.
Since it is so, in peace for ever rest;
Tis very just that God should have the best.
Sym. Ognell M.D. Coningbrens.
ON MY BROTHER.
Lovelace is dead! then let the world return
To its first chaos, mufled in its urn;
The stars and elements together lye,
Drench'd in perpetual obscurity,
And the whole machine in confusion be,
As immethodick as an anarchie.
May the great eye of day weep out his light,
Pale Cynthia leave the regiment of night,
The galaxia, all in sables dight,
Send forth no corruscations to our sight,
The Sister-Graces and the sacred Nine,
Statu'd with grief, attend upon his shrine,
Whose worth, whose loss, should we but truly rate,
'Twould puzzle our arithmetic to state
Th' accompt of vertu's so transcendent high,
Number and value reach infinity.
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