Ben. Johnson's poems, elegies, paradoxes, and sonnets

AN ELEGY Ʋpon Prince Henry's death.

KEep station Nature, and rest Heaven sure On thy supporters shoulders, lest 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.