^Appendix 



An Elegie upon D r . Donne 

 ('633) 



Our Donne is dead; England should mourne, may say 

 We had a man where language chose to stay 

 And shew her graceful! power. I would not praise 

 That and his vast wit (which in these vaine dayes 

 Make many proud] but, as they served to unlock 

 That Cabinet, his minde : where such a stock 

 Of knowledge was reposed, as all lament 

 (Or should] this general/ cause of discontent. 



And I rejoyce I am not so severe. 

 But (as I write a line] to weep a teare 

 For his decease ; such fad extremities 

 May make such men as I write Elegies. 



And wonder not ; for, when a genera/I losse 

 Falls on a nation, and they slight the crosse, 

 God hath raised Prophets to awaken them 

 From stupif action ; witnesse my milde pen, 

 Not us'd to upbraid the world, though now it must 

 Freely and boldly, for, the cause is just. 



Dull age, Oh I would spare thee, but ttfart worse, 

 Thou art not onely dull, but hast a curse 

 Of black ingratitude ; if not, couldst thou 

 Part with miraculous Donne, and make no vow 

 For thee, and thine, successively to pay 

 A sad remembrance to his dying day? 



Did his youth scatter Poetry, wherein 

 Was all Philosophy ? was every sinne, 

 Charactered in his Satyrs ? Made so foule 

 That some have fear'd their shapes, and kept their soule 

 Safer by reading verse? Did he give dayes 

 Past marble monuments, to those, whose praise 

 He would perpetuate? Did he (I fear e 

 The dull will doubt:} these at his twentieth year? 



But, more matured; Did his full soule conceive, 

 And in harmonious-holy-numbers weave 

 A* Crown of sacred sonnets, // to adorne 

 A dying Martyrs brow : or, to be worne 



* La Corona. 



3 6l 2 A 



