his dewy hair; and Affection hath unburdened the labouring streams of her womb in the low cistern of his grave: the Night hath resigned her jetty throne unto LUCIFER, and clear daylight possesseth the sky that was dimmed. Wherefore, break off your dance, you fairies and elves! and from the fields, with the torn carcases of your timbrels! for your kingdom is expired. Put out your rushlights, you poets and rhymers! and bequeath your crazed quatorzains to the chandlers! for lo, here he cometh that hath broken your legs.
APOLLO hath resigned his ivory harp unto ASTROPHEL; and he, like MERCURY, must lull you asleep with his music. Sleep ARGUS! sleep ignorance! sleep impudence! for MERCURY hath IO: and only Io Pæan belongeth to ASTROPHEL.
Dear ASTROPHEL! that in the ashes of thy love, livest again, like the Phoenix. O might thy body, as thy name, live again likewise here amongst us! but the earth—the mother of mortality—hath snatched thee too soon into her chilled cold arms; and will not let thee, by any means, be drawn from her deadly embrace: and thy divine soul, carried on angels' wings to heaven, is installed in HERMES' place, sole prolocutor to the gods. Therefore mayest thou never return from the Elysian fields, like ORPHEUS. Therefore must we ever mourn for our ORPHEUS.
Fain would a second spring of passion here spend itself on his sweet remembrance—but Religion, that rebuketh profane lamentation, drinks in the rivers of those despairful tears, which languorous ruth hath outwelled; and bids me look back to the House of Honour: where from one and the selfsame root of renown, I shall find many goodly branches derived; and such as, with the spreading increase of their virtues, may somewhat overshadow the grief of his loss.
