Lucasta [95]
we come to woo Thy sacred soul to look down from above, And see how much thy memory we love, Whose happy pen so pleased amorous ears, And, lifting bright LUCASTA to the sphears, Her in the star-bespangled orb did set Above fair Ariadnes coronet, Leaving a pattern to succeeding wits, By which to sing forth their Pythonick fits. Shall we bring tears and sighs? no, no! then we Should but bemone our selves for loosing thee, Or else thy happiness seem to deny, Or to repine at thy felicity. Then, whilst we chant out thine immortal praise, Our offerings shall be onely sprigs of bays; And if our tears will needs their brinks out-fly, We'l weep them forth into an elegy, To tell the world, how deep fates wounded wit, When Atropos the lovely Lovelace hit! How th' active fire, which cloath'd thy gen'rous mind, Consum'd the water, and the earth calcin'd Untill a stronger heat by death was given, Which sublimated thy poor soul to heaven. 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. Did I pronounce him dead! no, no! he lives, And from his aromatique cell he gives Spice-breathed fumes, whose odoriferous scent (In zephre-gales which never can be spent) Doth spread it self abroad, and much out-vies The eastern bird in her self-sacrifice; Or Father Phoebus, who to th' world derives Such various and such multiformed lives, Took notice that brave Lovelace did inspire The universe with his Promethean fire, And snatcht him hence, before his thread was spun, En'ving that here should be another Sun. T. L.<113.1>
<113.1> Thomas Lovelace, one of the poet's brothers.
ON THE DEATH OF MY DEAR BROTHER.
EPITAPH.
Tread (reader) gently, gently ore The happy dust beneath this floor: For in this narrow vault is set An alablaster cabinet, Wherein both arts and arms were put, Like Homers Iliads in a nut, Till Death with slow and easie pace Snatcht the bright jewell from the case; And now, transform'd, he doth arise A constellation in the skies, Teaching the blinded world the way, Through night, to startle into day: And shipwrackt shades, with steady hand, He steers unto th' Elizian land. Dudley Posthumus-Lovelace.
THE END.
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. Did I pronounce him dead! no, no! he lives, And from his aromatique cell he gives Spice-breathed fumes, whose odoriferous scent (In zephre-gales which never can be spent) Doth spread it self abroad, and much out-vies The eastern bird in her self-sacrifice; Or Father Phoebus, who to th' world derives Such various and such multiformed lives, Took notice that brave Lovelace did inspire The universe with his Promethean fire, And snatcht him hence, before his thread was spun, En'ving that here should be another Sun. T. L.<113.1>
<113.1> Thomas Lovelace, one of the poet's brothers.
ON THE DEATH OF MY DEAR BROTHER.
EPITAPH.
Tread (reader) gently, gently ore The happy dust beneath this floor: For in this narrow vault is set An alablaster cabinet, Wherein both arts and arms were put, Like Homers Iliads in a nut, Till Death with slow and easie pace Snatcht the bright jewell from the case; And now, transform'd, he doth arise A constellation in the skies, Teaching the blinded world the way, Through night, to startle into day: And shipwrackt shades, with steady hand, He steers unto th' Elizian land. Dudley Posthumus-Lovelace.
THE END.