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AN ELEGY UPON MY BEST FRIEND, L. K. C., by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Should we our sorrows in this method range
Last Line: The legacy of your lamented death.
Subject(s): Stanhope, Katharine. Countess Leinster


SHOULD we our sorrows in this method range,
Oft as misfortune doth their subjects change,
And to the sev'ral losses which befall,
Pay diff'rent rites at ev'ry funeral;
Like narrow springs, drain'd by dispersed streams,
We must want tears to wail such various themes,
And prove defective in Death's mournful laws,
Not having words proportion'd to each cause.

In your dear loss, my much afflicted sense
Discerns this truth by sad experience,
Who never look'd my Verses should survive,
As wet records, That you are not alive;
And less desir'd to make that promise due,
Which pass'd from me in jest, when urg'd by you.

How close and slily doth our frailty work!
How undiscover'd in the body lurk!
That those who this day did salute you well,
Before the next were frighted by your knell.
O wherefore since we must in order rise,
Should we not fall in equal obsequies?
But bear th' assaults of an uneven fate,
Like fevers which their hour anticipate;
Had this rule constant been, my long wish'd end
Might render you a mourner for your Friend:
As he for you, whose most deplor'd surprise
Imprints your death on all my faculties;
That hardly my dark phant'sy or discourse
This final duty from the pen enforce.

Such influence hath your eclipsed light,
It doth my reason, like myself, benight.

Let me, with luckless gamesters, then think best
(After I have set up and lost my rest),
Grown desp'rate through mischance, to venture last
My whole remaining stock upon a cast,
And flinging from me my now loathed pen,
Resolve for your sake ne'er to write again:
For whilst successive days their light renew,
I must no subject hope to equal you,
In whose heroic breast, as in their Sphere,
All graces of your sex concentred were.

Thus take I my long farewell of that art,
Fit only glorious actions to impart;
That art wherewith our crosses we beguile,
And make them in harmonious numbers smile:
Since you are gone, this holds no further use
Whose virtue and desert inspir'd my Muse.
O may she in your ashes buried be,
Whilst I myself become the Elegy.

And as it is observ'd, when Princes die,
In honour of that sad solemnity,
The now unoffic'd servants crack their staves,
And throw them down into their masters' graves:
So this last office of my broken verse
I solemnly resign upon your hearse;
And my brain's moisture, all that is unspent,
Shall melt to nothing at the monument.
Thus in moist weather, when the marble weeps,
You'll think it only his tears reck'ning keeps,
Who doth for ever to his thoughts bequeath
The legacy of your lamented death.





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