An
ELEGIE UPON THE
Death of Ben Iohnson,
the most Excellent of
English Poets

What doth officious Fancie 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 Johnson 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 hie 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,
Make 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 now will your Vessels saile,
The Seas so broken and the winds so fraile,
Such Rocks, such shallowes threatening every where,
And Iohnson dead, whose Art your course might stare.

Looke up! where Seneca, and Sophocles,
Quicke Plautus, and sharpe Aristophanes,
Englighten yon bright Orbe! Doth not your eye,
Among them, one farre larger fire, descry,
At which their lights grow pale? 'tis Iohnson, there
He shrines your Starre who was your Pilot here.

W. ABINGTON

(sigs. d2-d3r)