ON THE DEATH OF MY Much Honoured Friend, Colonel Richard Lovelace.  
AN elegy.  
MEthinks when Kings, Prophets, and Poets die,  
We should not bid men weep, nor ask them why,  
But the great loss should by instinct impair  
The Nations like a pestilential air,  
And in a moment Men should feel the Cramp,  
Of grief like persons poisoned with a damp;  
All things in nature should their death deplore,  
And the Sun look less lovely than before,  
The fixed stars should change their constant spaces,  
And Comets cast abroad their flagrant faces,  
Yet still we see Princes and Poets fall  
Without their proper pomp of funeral,  
Men look about as if they ne'er had known  
The poet's laurel, or the Prince's Crown;  
LOVELACE hath long been dead, and we can be  
Obliged to no man for an elegy.  
Are you all turned to silence, or did he  
Retain the only sap of poetry,  
That kept all branches living, must his fall  
Set an eternal Period upon all:  
So when a springtide doth begin to fly,  
From the green shore, each neighbouring Creek grows dry.  
But why do I so pettishly detract,  
An age that is so perfect, so exact,  
In all things excellent, it is no Fame,  
Or glory to deceased Lovelace Name,  
For he is weak in wit who doth deprave  
Another's worth to make his own seem brave,  
And this was not his aim, nor is it mine,  
I now conceive the scope of their design,  
Which is with one consent to bring, and burn  
Contributory Incense on his urn,  
Where each man's Love and Fancy shall be tried,  
As when great Johnson, or brave Shakespeare died.  
Wit's must unite, for Ignorance we see,  
Hath got a great train of artillery,  
Yet neither shall, nor can it blast the Fame  
And honour of deceased LOVELACE Name,  
Whose own LUCASTA can support his cred●t,  
Amongst all such who knowingly have read it,  
But who that Praise can by desert discuss  
Due to those Poems that are Posthumous,  
And if the last conceptions are the best,  
Those by degrees do much transcend the rest,  
So full, so fluent, that they richly suit  
With Orpheus' Lyre, or with Anacreon's Lute,  
And he shall melt his wings that shall aspire  
To reach a Fancy or one accent higher.  
Holland and France have known his nobler parts,  
And found him excellent in Arms, and Arts,  
To sum up all, few Men of Fame but know  
He was Tam Marti, quam Mercurio.  
Samuel Holland.