This decent Urne a sad inscription weares, Of Donnes departure from us, to the spheares; And the dumbe stone with silence seemes to tell The changes of this life, wherein is well Exprest, A cause to make all joy to cease, And never let our sorrowes more take ease; For now it is impossible to finde One fraught with vertues, to inrich a minde; But why should death, with a promiscuous hand At one rude stroke impoverish a land? Thou strict Attorney, unto stricter Fate, Didst thou confiscate his life out of hate To his rare Parts? Or didst thou throw thy dart, With envious hand, at some Plebeyan heart; And he with pious vertue stept betweene To save that stroke, and so was kill'd betweene By thee? O 'twas his goodnesse so to doe, Which humane kindnesse never reacht unto. Thus the hard lawes of death were satisfi'd, And he left us like Orphan friends, and di'de. Now from the Pulpit to the peoples eares, Whose speech shall send repentant sighes, and teares? Or tell mee, if a purer Virgin die, Who shall hereafter write her Elegie? Poets be silent, let your numbers sleepe, For he is gone that did all phansie keepe, Time hath no Soule, but his exalted verse Which with amazements, we may now reherse.
