AN ELEGIECALL EPISTLE ON SIR JOHN DAVIS DEATH.

Morgan! to call thee sadd and discontente

Were to proclaime thee weake; twere an evente

Of more then folly, since the obscurest eye

Is witness of thy magnanimity:

And yett to tell thee that thou hast noe cause

To greife, were to belye thy worth, because

The gapinge wound speakes out the sovldiers fame,

And deepe despites giue fortitude a name.

Tis true hee's dead, and the sterne fates (accurst)

There browes haue wrinkled, and haue done their worst

To spite this State and thee, in tearinge hence

That Nature's Accademy, that Starre, from whence

Streamd such full influence, of what the mind

Accounteth quintisentiall; and the vnkinde

And cruell Death, hath blasted such a flower,

Stolne such a gemme, as makes the sad Earth poore.

And yett alasse[275] hee is not fledd for want

Of what could make the ambitious, proud soule vaunt:

For whilst hee liv'd hee brocke up Honour's gates,

And pluck't bright fame from snarling Envie's grates

Doomd to obliuion; and his unmatchèd penne

(Drop'd from the winge of some bright Seraphin)

Inculpates him thus to all eternitye

The eldest of the Muses proginie.

Said I hee's dead? not soe; he could not die,

But findinge that curst lucre, bribery

And puft[276] ambition were the scarlett crimes

Of the Tribunall's tenants, and the times

Not suitinge with his vertues, cause his manner

Was to deserue and not desire, an honour;

Hee's sor'd aloft, where nought but virtue's pris'd,

And where base Mammon is not idoliz'd:

To that Kinge's Bench where Iustice is not gould,

Nor honours with old Ladies bought and sould;

To heauen's Exchequer, with intent to paye,

And render thence the Royall subsidaye

Of his rich spirit, which his soueraigne tooke

Without subscription, and crost Nature's booke.

[Footnote 275: This use of 'alas' was common contemporaneously, and

especially by the Puritan divines. G.]

[Footnote 276: I am not quite certain as to this word. It may be

'pust': query from pus = poisonous matter? and so intended to

characterize ambition? G.]

IX. ENTERTAINMENT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AT HAREFIELD BY COUNTESSE OF

DERBY.

The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies. Volume 2 of 2. · 第 222 / 226 题