Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN ELEGY UPON THE IMMATURE LOSS OF THE MOST VERTUOUS LADY ANNE RICH, by HENRY KING (1592-1669)


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AN ELEGY UPON THE IMMATURE LOSS OF THE MOST VERTUOUS LADY ANNE RICH, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I envy not thy mortal triumphs, death
Last Line: Thus strive to canonize thy memory.
Subject(s): Cavendish, Anne. Lady Rich (d. 1638)


I ENVY not thy mortal triumphs, Death
(Thou enemy to Virtue, as to breath),
Nor do I wonder much, nor yet complain
The weekly numbers by thy arrow slain.
The whole world is thy factory, and we,
Like traffic, driven and retail'd by Thee:
And where the springs of life fill up so fast,
Some of the waters needs must run to waste.

It is confess'd, yet must our griefs dispute
That which thine own conclusion doth refute,
Ere we begin. Hearken! for if thy ear
Be to thy throat proportion'd, thou canst hear.
Is there no order in the work of Fate?
Nor rule, but blindly to anticipate
Our growing seasons? or think'st thou 'tis just,
To sprinkle our fresh blossoms with thy dust,
Till by abortive funerals, thou bring
That to an Autumn, Nature meant a Spring?
Is't not enough for thee, that wither'd age
Lies the unpitied subject of thy rage;
But like an ugly amorist, thy crest
Must be with spoils of Youth and Beauty drest?
In other camps, those which sat down to-day
March first to-morrow, and they longest stay,
Who last came to the service: but in thine,
Only confusion stands for discipline.
We fall in such promiscuous heaps, none can
Put any diff'rence 'twixt thy rear or van;
Since oft the youngest lead thy files. For this,
The grieved world here thy accuser is,
And I a plaintiff, 'mongst those many ones,
Who wet this Lady's urn with zealous moans;
As if her ashes, quick'ning into years,
Might be again embodied by our tears.
But all in vain; the moisture we bestow
Shall make as soon her curled marble grow,
As render heat or motion to that blood,
Which through her veins branch't like an azure flood;
Whose now still current in the grave is lost,
Lock'd up, and fetter'd by eternal frost.

Desist from hence, doting Astrolog!
To search for hidden wonders in the sky;
Or from the concourse of malignant stars,
Foretell diseases, gen'ral as our wars:
What barren droughts, forerunners of lean dearth,
Threaten to starve the plenty of the earth:
What horrid forms of darkness must affright
The sickly world, hast'ning to that long night
Where it must end. If there no portents are,
No black eclipses for the Kalendar,
Our times sad annals will rememb'red be
I' th' loss of bright Northumberland and Thee:
Two stars of Court, who in one fatal year
By most untimely set drop'd from their sphere.
She in the winter took her flight, and soon
As her perfections reach'd the point of noon,
Wrapt in a cloud, contracted her wish'd stay
Unto the measure of a short-liv'd day.
But Thou in Summer, like an early rose,
By Death's cold hand nipp'd as Thou didst disclose,
Took'st a long day to run that narrow stage,
Which in two gasping minutes summ'd thy age.
And, as the fading rose, when the leaves shed,
Lies in its native sweetness buried,
Thou in thy virtues bedded and inhearst,
Sleep'st with those odours thy pure fame disperst,
Where till that Rising Morn thou must remain,
In which thy wither'd flowers shall spring again,
And greater beauties thy wak'd body vest,
Than were at thy departure here possest.

So with full eyes we close thy vault. Content
(With what thy loss bequeaths us) to lament,
And make that use of thy griev'd funeral,
As of a crystal broken in the fall;
Whose pitied fractures, gather'd up, and set,
May smaller mirrors for thy sex beget;
There let them view themselves, until they see
The end of all their glories shown in Thee.

Whilst in the truth of this sad tribute, I
Thus strive to canonize thy memory.





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