ELEGY

UPON THE HONOURABLE HENRY CAMPBELL,

SON TO THE EARL OF AYR.

IT's false arithmetic to say thy breath
Expir'd too soon, or irreligious death
Profan'd thy holy youth; for if thy years
Be number'd by thy virtues or our tears*,
Thou didst the old Methusalem outlive.
Though Time but twenty years account can give
Of thy abode on earth, yet every hour
Of thy brave youth by virtue's wondrous power
Was lengthen'd to a year; each well-spent day
Keeps young the body, but the soul makes grey.
Such miracles work goodness; and behind
Thou'st left to us such stories of thy mind
Fit for example; that when them we read,
We envy earth the treasure of the dead.
Why do the sinful riot, and survive
The fevers of their surfeits? Why alive
Is yet disorder'd greatness, and all they
Who the loose laws of their wild blood obey ?
Why lives the gamester, who doth black the night
With cheats and imprecations? Why is light

for if thy years

Be number'd by thy virtues or our tears, &c.] So Young:
Methusalems may die at twenty-one.

Look'd on by those whose breath may poison it;
Who sold the vigour of their strength and wit
To buy diseases: and thou, who fair truth
And virtue didst adore, lost in thy youth?

But I'll not question fate : heaven doth convey
Those first from the dark prison of their clay
Who are most fit for heaven. Thou in war
Hadst ta'en degrees, those dangers felt, which are
The props on which peace safely dost subsist,
And through the cannons' blue and horrid mist
Hadst brought her light; and now wert so complete,
That nought but death did want to make thee great.
Thy death was timely then bright soul to thee,
And in thy fate thou suffer'dst not; 'twas we
Who died, robb'd of thy life: in whose increase
Of real glory, both in war and peace,

We all did share: and thou away we fear

Didst with thee the whole stock of honour bear.
Each then be his own mourner: we'll to thee
Write hymns, upon the world an elegy.

Castara, by W. Habington.

THE EXEQUY.

ACCEPT, thou shrine of my dead saint,

Instead of dirges, this complaint;

And for sweet flowers to crown thy hearse,
Receive a strew of weeping verse

From thy griev'd friend, whom thou might'st see
Quite melted into tears for thee.

Dear loss! since thy untimely fate
My task hath been to meditate

On thee, on thee: thou art the book,
The library whereon I look

Though almost blind, for thee (lov'd clay)
I languish out, not live the day,

Using no other exercise

But what I practise with mine eyes :
By which wet glasses I find out
How lazily Time creeps about
To one that mourns: this, only this
My exercise and bus'ness is:
So I compute the weary hours
With sighs dissolved into showers.

Nor wonder if my time go thus
Backward and most preposterous;
Thou hast benighted me; thy set,
This eve of blackness did beget,
Who wast my day, (though overcast
Before thou hadst thy noontide past)
And I remember must, in tears,
Thou scarce hadst seen so many years
As day tells hours; by thy clear sun
My love and fortune first did run;
But thou wilt never more appear
Folded within my hemisphere,
Since both thy light and motion
Like a fled star is fall'n and gone,

And 'twixt me and my soul's dear wish
The earth now interposed is,

Which such a strange eclipse doth make
As ne'er was read in almanack.
I could allow thee for a time

To darken me and my sad clime,

1

Were it a month, a year, or ten,
I would thy exile live till then;
And all that space my mirth adjourn,
So thou would'st promise to return;
And putting off thy ashy shroud
At length disperse this sorrow's cloud.
But woe is me! the longest date
Too narrow is to calculate
These empty hopes: never shall I
Be so much bless'd as to descry
A glimpse of thee, till that day come
Which shall the earth to cinders doom,
And a fierce fever must calcine

The body of this world like thine,
(My little world!) that fit of fire
Once off, our bodies shall aspire
To our soul's bliss: then we shall rise,
And view ourselves with clearer eyes
In that calm region, where no night
Can hide us from each others sight.

Meantime, thou hast her, earth: much good

May my harm do thee! since it stood

With heaven's will I might not call

Her longer mine, I give thee all
My short-liv'd right and interest
In her, whom living I lov'd best:
With a most free and bounteous grief,
I give thee what I could not keep.
Be kind to her, and prithee look
Thou write into thy doomsday book
Each parcel of this rarity

Which in thy casket shrin'd doth lie:
See that thou make thy reck'ning straight,
And yield her back again by weight;

For thou must audit on thy trust
Each grain and atom of this dust,
As thou wilt answer him that lent,
Not gave,
thee my dear monument;
So close the ground, and 'bout her shade
Black curtains draw, my bride is laid.

Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed
Never to be disquieted!

My last good night! thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake:

Till age, or grief, or sickness, must
Marry my body to that dust

It so much loves; and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there; I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay:
I am already on the way,

And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And ev'ry hour a step towards thee.
At night when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my west
Of life, almost by eight hours sail,
Than when sleep breath'd his drowsy gale.
Thus from the sun my bottom steers,
And my day's compass downward bears:
Nor labour I to stem the tide

Through which to thee I swiftly glide.

"Tis true, with shame and grief I yield, Thou like the van first took'st the field, And gotten hast the victory

In thus adventuring to die