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AN ELEGY UPON THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S,

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DR. JOHN DONNE,

BY MR. THOMAS CARY, A

CAN

we not force from widow'd Poetry, Now thou art dead, great Donne! an elegy

To crown thy hearse? why yet dare we at trust,
Tho' with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust?
Such as the unscissor'd churchman from the flow'r
Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour,
Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay

Upon thy ashes on the funeral day?

Have we no voice, no tune? didst thou dispense

Thro' all our language both the words and sense? 10
'Tis a sad truth. The Pulpit may her plain
And sober Christian precepts still retain;
Doctrines it may and wholesome uses frame,
Grave homilies and lectures, but the flame.
Of thy brave soul, that shot such heat and light
As burnt our earth, and made our darkness bright,
Committed holy rapes upon our will,

Did thro' the eye the melting heart distil,

And the deep knowledge of dark truths so teach,

As sense might judge what fancy could not reach, 20 Must be desir'd for ever. So the fire

That fills with spirit and heat the Delphique choir,

Which, kindled first by thy Promethean breath,
Glow'd here a while, lies quench'd now in thy death.
The Muses' garden, with pedantic weeds

O'erspread, was purg'd by thee; the lazy seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,

And fresh invention planted. Thou didst pay-
The debts of our penurious bankrupt age,
Licentious thefts, that make poetic rage"
A mimic fury, when our souls must be
Possest, or with Anacreon's ecstacy,*

Or Pindar's, not their own. The subtile cheat
Of she-exchanges, and the juggling feat
Of two-edg'd words, or whatsoever wrong
By our's was done the Greek of Latin tongue,
Thou hadst redem'd, and open'd us a mine
Of rich and pregnant fancy, drawn a line
Of masculine expression, which, had good
Old Orpheus seen, or all the ancient brood.
Our superstitious fools admire, and hold
Their lead more precious than thy burnish'd gold,"
Thou hadst been their exchequer, and no more
They in each other's dust had rak'd for ore.
Thou shalt yield no precedence but of time,

40

And the blind fate of language, whose tun'd chime More charms the outward sense; yet thou may'st claim From so great disadvantage greater fame,

Since to the awe of thy imperious wit

Our stubborn language bends, made only fit
Donne.]

Hij

50

AN ELEGY UPON THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S,
DR. JOHN DONNE,

BY MR. THOMAS CARY, 40%

CAN we not force from widow'd Poetry,
Now thou art dead, great Donne! an elegy
To crown thy hearse? why yet dare we at trust,
Tho' with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust?
Such as the unscissor'd churchman from the flow'r

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Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour,

Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay

Upon thy ashes on the funeral day?

Have we no voice, no tune? didst thou dispense
Thro' all our language both the words and sense?. 10
'Tis a sad truth. The Pulpit may her plain
And sober Christian precepts still retain;
Doctrines it may and wholesome uses frame,
Grave homilies and lectures, but the flame.
Of thy brave soul, that shot such heat and light
As burnt our earth, and made our darkness bright,
Committed holy rapes upon our will,

Did thro' the eye the melting heart distil,

And the deep knowledge of dark truths so teach,
As sense might judge what fancy could not reach, 20
Must be desir'd for ever. So the fire

That fills with spirit and heat the Delphique choir,

So doth the swiftly-turning wheel not stand

In th' instant we withdraw the moving hand,

But some small time maintains a faint weak course,

By virtue of the first impulsive force;

And so, whilst I cast on thy funeral pile
Thy crown of bays, oh! let it crack a while,
And spit disdain, till the devouring flashes
Suck all the moisture up, then turn to ashes.
I will not draw the envy to engross
All thy perfections, or weep all our loss;
Those are too nuin'rous for an elegy,
And this too great to be express'd by me.
Tho' ev'ry pen should share a distinct part,
Yet thou art theme enough to try all art.
Let others carve the rest; it shall suffice.
I on thy tomb this epitaph incise::.

Here lies a king that rul'd, as he thought fit,
The universal monarchy of wit:

Here lie two flamens, and both those the best,
Apollo's first, at last the true God's priest.

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སོ་ ཟི་ རྩྭ

93

AN ELEGY ON DR. DONNE,

BY SIR LUCIUS CARY, JA

POETS! attend; the elegy I sing,

Both of a double named priest and king;

L

Instead of coats and pendants bring your verse,
For you must be chief mourners at his hearse:
A tomb your Muse must to his fame supply,
No other monuments can never die:
And as he was a two-fold priest, in youth
Apollo's, afterwards the voice of Truth,
God's conduit pipe för grace, who chose him for
His extraordinary embassador; -- -

So let his liegers with the poets join';

Both having shares, both must in grief combine.
Whilst Jonson forceth with his elegyn

Tears from a grief-unknowing Scythian's eye,
(Like Moses, at whose stroke the waters gush'd
From forth the rock, and like a torrent rush'd)'
Let Laud his funeral sermon preach, and show
Those virtues dull eyes were not apt to know:
Nor leave that piercing theme, till it appears
To be Good-Friday by the church's tears:
Yet make not grief too long oppress our powers,
Lest that his fun'ral sermon should prove ours;
Nor yet forget that heavenly eloquence
With which he did the bread of life dispense;
Preacher and orator, discharg'd both parts,

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With pleasure for our sense, health for our hearts; And the first such (tho' a long-studied art,

Tell us our soul is all in every part)

None was so marble but, whilst him he hears, Th
His soul so long dwelt only in his ears,

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