Can we not force from widdowed Poetry, Now thou art dead (Great DONNE) one Elegie To crowne thy Hearse? Why yet dare we not trust Though with unkneaded dowe-bak't prose thy dust, Such as the uncisor'd Churchman from the flower 5 Of fading Rhetorique, short liv'd as his houre, Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay Upon thy Ashes, on the funerall day? Have we no voice, no tune? Did'st thou dispense Through all our language, both the words and sense? 10 'Tis a sad truth: The Pulpit may her plaine, And sober Christian precepts still retaine, Doctrines it may, and wholesome Uses frame, Grave Homilies, and Lectures, But the flame Of thy brave Soule, that shot such heat and light, 15 As burnt our earth, and made our darknesse bright, Committed holy Rapes upon our Will, Did through the eye the melting heart distill; And the deepe knowledge of darke truths so teach, As sense might judge, what phansie could not reach; 20 Must be desir'd for ever. So the fire, That fills with spirit and heat the Delphique quire, Which kindled first by thy Promethean breath, Glow'd here a while, lies quench't now in thy death; The Muses garden with Pedantique weedes 25 O'rspred, was purg'd by thee; The lazie seeds Of servile imitation throwne away; And fresh invention planted, Thou didst pay The debts of our penurious bankrupt age; Licentious thefts, that make poëtique rage 30 A Mimique fury, when our soules must bee Possest, or with Anacreons Extasie, Or Pindars, not their owne; The subtle cheat Of slie Exchanges, and the jugling feat Of two-edg'd words, or whatsoever wrong 35 By ours was done the Greeke, or Latine tongue, Thou hast redeem'd, and open'd Us a Mine Of rich and pregnant phansie, drawne a line Of masculine expression, which had good Old Orpheus seene, Or all the ancient Brood 40 Our superstitious fooles admire, and hold Their lead more precious, then thy burnish't Gold, Thou hadst beene their Exchequer, and no more They each in others dust, had rak'd for Ore. Thou shalt yield no precedence, but of time, 45 And the blinde fate of language, whose tun'd chime More charmes the outward sense; Yet thou maist claime From so great disadvantage greater fame, Since to the awe of thy imperious wit Our stubborne language bends, made only fit 50 With her tough-thick-rib'd hoopes to gird about Thy Giant phansie, which had prov'd too stout For their soft melting Phrases. As in time They had the start, so did they cull the prime Buds of invention many a hundred yeare, 55 And left the rifled fields, besides the feare To touch their Harvest, yet from those bare lands Of what is purely thine, thy only hands