Classic Poem

AN ELEGIE UPON THE Death of Ben . J OHNSON , the most Excellent of English Poets :

What doth officious Fancie here prepare?
Be't rather this rich Kingdoms charge & care
To find a Virgin quarrie whence no hand,
E're wrought a Tombe on vulgar Dust to stand,
And thence bring for this worke Materials fit,
Great J ohnson needs no Architect of Wit ;
Who forc'd from Art , receiv'd from Nature more
Then doth survive Him , or e're liv'd before.
And Poets , with what veile so'ere you hide
Your aime , 'twill not be thought your griefe, but pride
Which that your Cypresse never growth might want,
Did it neere his eternall Lawrell plant.
Heaven at the death of Princes , by the birth
Of some new starre , seemes to instruct the Earth ,
How it resents our humane Fate . Then why
Didst thou Wits most triumphant Monarch dye
Without thy Comet? Did the Skye despaire
To teeme a Fire , bright as thy glories were?
Or is it by its Age , unfruitfull growne,
And can produce no light , but what is knowne,
A common Mourner , when a Princes fall
Invites a Starre t'attend the Funerall?
But those prodigious Sights onely create
Talke for the Vulgar, Heaven before thy Fate ,
That thou thy selfe might'st thy owne Dirges heare,
Made the sad stage close mourner for a yeere;
The stage , (which as by an instinct divine,
Instructed, seeing it's owne Fate in Thine,
And knowing how it owed it's life to Thee)
Prepar'd it selfe thy Sepulcher to be,
And had continued so, but that Thy Wit ,
Which as the Soule , first animated it,
Still hovers here below, and nere shall dye,
Till Time be buried in eternity .
But You! whose Comicke labours on the stage,
Against the envy of a froward age
Hold combat! How will now your Vessels saile,
The Seas so broken and the winds so fraile,
Such Rocks , such shallowes threatning every where,
And Iohnson dead, whose Art your course might steare?
Looke up! where Seneca , and Sophocles ,
Quicke Plautus , and sharpe Aristophanes ,
Enlighten yon bright Orbe! Doth not your eye,
Among them, one farre larger fire, descry,
At which their lights grow pale? 'tis Iohnson , there
He shines your Starre who was your Pilot here.

An ELEGIE UPON THE Death of Ben . J OHNSON , the most Excellent of English Poets :

What doth officious Fancie here prepare?
Be't rather this rich Kingdoms charge & care
To find a Virgin quarrie whence no hand,
E're wrought a Tombe on vulgar Dust to stand,
And thence bring for this worke Materials fit,
Great J ohnson needs no Architect of Wit ;
Who forc'd from Art , receiv'd from Nature more
Then doth survive Him , or e're liv'd before.
And Poets , with what veile so'ere you hide
Your aime , 'twill not be thought your griefe, but pride
Which that your Cypresse never growth might want,
Did it neere his eternall Lawrell plant.
Heaven at the death of Princes , by the birth
Of some new starre , seemes to instruct the Earth ,
How it resents our humane Fate . Then why
Didst thou Wits most triumphant Monarch dye
Without thy Comet? Did the Skye despaire
To teeme a Fire , bright as thy glories were?
Or is it by its Age , unfruitfull growne,
And can produce no light , but what is knowne,
A common Mourner , when a Princes fall
Invites a Starre t'attend the Funerall?
But those prodigious Sights onely create
Talke for the Vulgar, Heaven before thy Fate ,
That thou thy selfe might'st thy owne Dirges heare,
Made the sad stage close mourner for a yeere;
The stage , (which as by an instinct divine,
Instructed, seeing it's owne Fate in Thine,
And knowing how it owed it's life to Thee)
Prepar'd it selfe thy Sepulcher to be,
And had continued so, but that Thy Wit ,
Which as the Soule , first animated it,
Still hovers here below, and nere shall dye,
Till Time be buried in eternity .
But You! whose Comicke labours on the stage,
Against the envy of a froward age
Hold combat! How will now your Vessels saile,
The Seas so broken and the winds so fraile,
Such Rocks , such shallowes threatning every where,
And Iohnson dead, whose Art your course might steare?
Looke up! where Seneca , and Sophocles ,
Quicke Plautus , and sharpe Aristophanes ,
Enlighten yon bright Orbe! Doth not your eye,
Among them, one farre larger fire, descry,
At which their lights grow pale? 'tis Iohnson , there
He shines your Starre who was your Pilot here.