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.