Upon the death of my ever desired friend Doctor Donne Dean of Pauls

To have liv'd eminent in a degreee

Beyond our lofty'st flights, that is like thee;

Or t'have had too much merit is not safe;

For such excesses find no Epitaph.

At common graves we have Poetick eyes

Can melt themselves in easie Elegies;

Each quill can drop his tributary verse,

And pin it with the Hatchments, to the Herse:

But at thine, Poem or inscription

(Rich Soul of wit and language); we have none;

Indeed a silence does that Tomb befit

Where is no Herald left to blazon it.

Widdow'd invention justly doth forbear

To come abroad knowing thou art not here,

Late her great Patron; whose prerogative

Maintain'd and cloth'd her so, as none alive

Must now presume to keep her at thy rate,

Though he the Indies for her dowre estate:

Or else that awful fire, which once did burn

In thy clear brain, now fall'n into thy Urn.

Lives there to fright rude Empericks from thence,

Which might profane thee by their ignorance:

Who ever writes of thee, and in a style

Unworthy such a Theme, does but revile

Thy precious dust, and wake a learned spirit

Which may revenge his rapes upon thy merit.

For all a low-pitcht fancie can devise,

Will prove at best but hallow'd injuries.

Thou, like the dying Swan, didst lately sing

Thy mournful Dirge in audience of the King;

When pale looks, and faint accents of thy breath,

Presented so to life that piece of death,

That it was fear'd and prophesi'd by all

Thou thither cam'st to preach thy Funerall.

O! hadst thou in an Elegiack knell

Rung out unto the world thine own farewell;

And in thy high victorious numbers beat

The solemn measure of thy griev'd retreat:

Thou might'st the Poets service now have mist,

As well as then thou didst prevent the Priest:

And never to the world beholden be,

So much as for an Epitaph for thee.

I do not like the office. Nor is't fit

Thou, who didst lend our age such summes of wit,

Should'st now reborrow from her Bankrupt Mine

That Ore to bury thee, which once was thine.

Rather still leave us in thy debt; and know

(Exalted Soul!) More glory 'tis to ow

Unto thy Herse what we can never pay,

Then with embased coin those Rites defray.

Commit we then Thee to Thy Self: nor blame

Our drooping loves, which thus to thine own fame

Leave Thee Executour: since but thy own

No pen could do Thee Justice, nor Bayes crown

Thy vast desert; save that we nothing can

Depute to be thy ashes Guardian.

So Jewellers no Art or Metal trust

To form the Diamond, but the Diamonds dust.