AN ELEGY Upon Prince Henry's death

Keep station Nature, and rest Heaven sure

On thy supporters shoulders, left past cure,

Thou dasht in ruine fall by a griefs weight

Will make thy basis shrink, and lay thy height

Low as the Center. Heark! and feel it read

Through the astonisht Kingdom, Henry's dead.

It is enough; who seeks to aggravate

One strain beyond this, prove more sharp his fate

Then sad our doom. The world dares not survive

To parallel this woes superlative.

O killing Rhetorick of Death! two words

Breathe stronger terrours then Plague, Fire, or Swords

Ere conquer'd. This were Epitaph and Verse

Worthy to be prefixt in Natures herse,

Or Earths sad dissolution; whose fall

Will be less grievous though more generall:

For all the woe ruine ere buried,

Sounds in these fatal accents, Henry's dead.

Cease then unable Poetry, thy phrase

Is weak and dull to strike us with amaze

Worthy thy vaster subject. Let none dare

To coppy this sad hap, but with despair

Hanging at his quills point. For not a stream

Of Ink can write much less improve this Theam.

Invention highest wrought by grief or wit

Must sink with him, and on his Tomb-stone split.

Who, like the dying Sun, tells us the light

And glory of our Day set in his Night.