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

AN ELEGY Ʋpon the L. Bishop of London John King.

SAd Relick of a blessed Soul! whose trust We sealed up in this religious dust. O do not thy low Exequies suspect As the cheap arguments of our neglect. 'Twas a commanded duty that thy grave As little pride as thou thy self should have.

Therefore thy covering is an humble stone, And but a word for thy inscription. When those that in the same earth neighbour thee, Have each his Chronicle and Pedigree: They have their waving pennons and their flagges, Of Matches and Alliance formal bragges.) VVhen thou (although from Ancestors thou came Old as the Heptarchy, great as thy Name) ••leep'st there inshrin'd in thy admired parts, ••nd hast no Heraldry but thy deserts.

Yet let not Them their prouder Marbles boast, For They rest with less honour, though more cost.

Go, search the world, and with your Mattox woun•• The groaning bosom of the patient ground: Digge from the hidden veins of her dark womb All that is rare and precious for a tomb: Yet when much treasure, and more time is spent You must grant His the nobler Monument.

Whose Faith stands ore Him for a Hearse, and ha•• The Resurrection for His Epitaph.

Notes

• Resurgam.