[Line: 42 It is rather curious that Drummond (in one of those _Marginalia_ in which he relieves his feelings somewhat subacidly) declares that his robustious guest 'neither understood French nor Italian'.] _An Elegy upon Prince Henry's death_ [Died Nov. 6, 1612.] Keep station, Nature, and rest, Heaven, sure On thy supporters' shoulders, lest, past cure, Thou dash'd in ruin fall, by a grief's weight Will make thy basis shrink, and lay thy height Low as the centre. Hark! and feel it read Through the astonish'd Kingdom, Henry's dead. It is enough; who seeks to aggravate One strain beyond this, prove[s] more sharp his fate Than sad our doom. The world dares not survive To parallel this woe's superlative. 10 O killing Rhetoric of Death! two words Breathe stronger terrors than plague, fire, or swords Ere conquer'd. This were epitaph and verse, Worthy to be prefix'd in Nature's hearse, Or Earth's sad dissolution; whose fall Will be less grievous, though more general: For all the woe ruin e'er buried Sounds in these fatal accents, Henry's dead. Cease then, unable Poetry; thy phrase Is weak and dull to strike us with amaze 20 Worthy thy vaster subject. Let none dare To copy this sad hap, but with despair Hanging at his quill's point. For not a stream Of ink can write, much less improve, this theme. Invention highest wrought by grief or wit Must sink with him, and on his tombstone split; Who, like the dying Sun, tells us the light And glory of our Day set in his Night. [_Prince Henry._] Besides composing these English verses King contributed two Latin sets to _Justa Oxoniensium_, one of several Oxford _tombeaux_ for the Prince who was taken away from the evil to come. The present poem appears to me (though, of course, the high-strung character of the mourning seems to have been both general and sincere) to be much more 'frigid and artificial' than the _Mrs. Anne Kirk_. Hannah gives several variants, not merely from his usual MS. but from Malone 21. I have taken those which seem to have some point.] [Lines: 5-6 For 'Hark ... dead.' the Malone reading is: Death and horror wed To vent their teeming mischief: Henry's dead. The other MS., for l. 6, has: Through the astonisht _world_, Henry _is_ dead. ] [Line: 11 Malone MS. '_Compendious Eloquence_ of Death', &c.] [Line: 18 For the first half, Malone MS. 'lies in this narrow compass'; the other, 'throngs' for 'lies'.] _An Elegy upon S. W. R._ [Sir W. Raleigh? Executed Oct. 29, 1618.]