An Elegy upon the Death of Queene Anne

Noe; not a quatch, sad poets; doubt you,
There is not greife enough without you?
Or that it will asswage ill newes,
To say, Shee’s dead, that was your muse?
Joine not with Death to make these times
More grievous then most grievous rimes.

And if ’t be possible, deare eyes,
The famous Universityes,
If bold your eyes bee matches, sleepe;
Or, if you will be loyall, weepe:
For-beare the press, there’s none will looke
Before the mart for a new booke.

Why should you tell the world what witts
Grow at New-parkes, or Campus-pitts?
Or what conceipts youth stumble on,
Taking the ayre towards Trumpington?
Nor you, grave tutours, who doe temper
Your long and short with que and semper;
O doe not, when your owne are done,
Make for my ladyes eldest sonne
Verses, which he will turne to prose,
When he shall read what you compose:
Nor, for an epithite that failes,
Bite off your unpoëticke nailes.
Unjust! Why should you in these vaines,
Punish your fingers for your braines?

Know henceforth, that griefes vitall part
Consists in nature, not in art:
And verses that are studied
Mourne for themselves, not for the dead.

Heark, the Queenes epitaph shall bee
Noe other then her pedigree:
For lines in bloud cutt out are stronger
Then lines in marble, and last longer:
And such a verse shall never fade,
That is begotten, and not made.

“Her father, brother, husband, ... kinges;
Royall relations! from her springes
A prince and princesse; and from those
Faire certaintyes, and rich hope growes.”
Here’s poetry shall be secure
While Britaine, Denmarke, Rheine endure:
Enough on earth; what purchase higher,
Save heaven, to perfect her desire?
And as a straying starr intic’t
And governd those wise-men to Christ,
Ev’n soe a herauld-starr this yeare
Did beckon to her to appeare:
A starr which did not to our nation
Portend her death, but her translation:
For when such harbingers are seene,
God crownes a saint, not kills a queene.