Elegie on D. D

Now, by one yeare, time and our frailtie haveLessened our first confusion, since the GraveClos'd thy deare Ashes, and the teares which flowIn these, have no springs, but of solid woe:Or they are drops, which cold amazement frozeAt thy decease, and will not thaw in Prose:All streames of Verse which shall lament that day,Doe truly to the Ocean tribute pay;But they have lost their saltnesse, which the eyeIn recompence of wit, strives to supply:Passions excesse for thee wee need not feare,Since first by thee our passions hallowed were;Thou mad'st our sorrowes, which before had binOnely for the Successe, sorrowes for sinne,We owe thee all those teares, now thou art dead,Which we shed not, which for our selves we shed.Nor didst thou onely consecrate our teares,Give a religious tincture to our feares;But even our joyes had learn'd an innocence,Thou didst from gladnesse separate offence:All mindes at once suckt grace from thee, as where(The curse revok'd) the Nations had one eare.Pious dissector: thy one houre did treateThe thousand mazes of the hearts deceipt;Thou didst pursue our lov'd and subtill sinne,Through all the foldings wee had wrapt it in,And in thine owne large minde finding the wayBy which our selves we from our selves convey,Didst in us, narrow models, know the sameAngles, though darker, in our meaner frame.How short of praise is this? My Muse, alas,Climbes weakly to that truth which none can passe,Hee that writes best, may onely hope to leaveA Character of all he could conceiveBut none of thee, and with mee must confesse,That fansie findes some checke, from an excesseOf merit most, of nothing, it hath spun,And truth, as reasons task and theame, doth shunne.She makes a fairer flight in emptinesse,Than when a bodied truth doth her oppresse.Reason againe denies her scales, becauseHers are but scales, shee judges by the lawesOf weake comparison, thy vertue sleightsHer feeble Beame, and her unequall Weights.What prodigie of wit and pietieHath she else knowne, by which to measure thee?Great soule: we can no more the worthinesseOf what you were, then what you are, expresse.