. RICHARD LOVELACE,
OCCASIONED BY THE PUBLICATION OF HIS POSTHUME-POEMS.

ELEGIE.

Great son of Mars, and of Minerva too!
With what oblations must we come to woo
Thy sacred soul to look down from above,
And see how much thy memory we love,
Whose happy pen so pleased amorous ears,
And, lifting bright LUCASTA to the sphears,
Her in the star-bespangled orb did set
Above fair Ariadnes coronet,
Leaving a pattern to succeeding wits,
By which to sing forth their Pythonick fits.
Shall we bring tears and sighs? no, no! then we
Should but bemone our selves for loosing thee,
Or else thy happiness seem to deny,
Or to repine at thy felicity.
Then, whilst we chant out thine immortal praise,
Our offerings shall be onely sprigs of bays;
And if our tears will needs their brinks out-fly,
We'l weep them forth into an elegy,
To tell the world, how deep fates wounded wit,
When Atropos the lovely Lovelace hit!
How th' active fire, which cloath'd thy gen'rous mind,
Consum'd the water, and the earth calcin'd
Untill a stronger heat by death was given,
Which sublimated thy poor soul to heaven.
Thou knew'st right well to guide the warlike steed,
And yet could'st court the Muses with full speed
And such success, that the inspiring Nine
Have fill'd their Thespian fountain so with brine.
Henceforth we can expect no lyrick lay,
But biting satyres through the world must stray.
Bellona joyns with fair Erato too,
And with the Destinies do keep adoe,
Whom thus she queries: could not you awhile
Reprieve his life, until another file
Of poems such as these had been drawn up?
The fates reply'd that thou wert taken up,
A sacrifice unto the deities;
Since things most perfect please their holy eyes,
And that no other victim could be found
With so much learning and true virtue crown'd.
Since it is so, in peace for ever rest;
Tis very just that God should have the best.
Sym. Ognell M.D. Coningbrens.

ON MY BROTHER.

Lovelace is dead! then let the world return
To its first chaos, mufled in its urn;
The stars and elements together lye,
Drench'd in perpetual obscurity,
And the whole machine in confusion be,
As immethodick as an anarchie.
May the great eye of day weep out his light,
Pale Cynthia leave the regiment of night,
The galaxia, all in sables dight,
Send forth no corruscations to our sight,
The Sister-Graces and the sacred Nine,
Statu'd with grief, attend upon his shrine,