Elegy Upon the Untimely Death of the Incomparable Prince Henry by John Donne

Look to me, faith, and look to my faith, God; / For both my centres feel this period. / Of weight one centre, one of greatness is; / And reason is that centre, faith is this; / For into our reason flow, and there do end, / All that this natural world doth comprehend, / Quotidian things, and equidistant hence, / Shut in, for man, in one circumference. / But for th' enormous greatnesses, which are / So disproportion'd and so angular, / As is God's essence, place, and providence, / Where, how, when, what souls do, departed hence, / These things (eccentric else) on faith do strike; / Yet neither all, nor upon all, alike. / For reason, put to her best extension, / Almost meets faith, and makes both centres one / And nothing ever came so near to this, / As contemplation of that prince we miss. / For all that faith might credit mankind could, / Reason still seconded that this prince would. / If, then, least moving of the centre make, / More than if whole hell belch'd, the world to shake, / What must this do, centres distracted so, / That we see not what to believe or know? / Was it not well believed till now, that he, / Whose reputation was an ecstasy / On neighbour states, which knew not why to wake, / Till he discover'd what ways he would take; / For whom, what princes angled, when they tried, / Met a torpedo, and were stupefied; / And others' studies, how he would be bent, / Was his great father's greatest instrument, / And activest spirit, to convey and tie / This soul of peace through Christianity? / Was it not well believed, that he would make / This general peace th' eternal overtake, / And that his times might have stretch'd out so far, / As to touch those of which they emblems are? / For to confirm this just belief, that now / The last days came, we saw heaven did allow / That, but from his aspect and exercise, / In peaceful times rumours of wars did rise. / But now this faith is heresy; we must / Still stay, and vex our great-grandmother, Dust. / O, is God prodigal? hath He spent His store / Of plagues on us; and only now, when more / Would ease us much, doth He grudge misery, / And will not let's enjoy our curse-to die? / As for the earth thrown lowest down of all, / 'Twere an ambition to desire to fall, / So God, in our desire to die, doth know / Our plot for ease, in being wretched so. / Therefore we live; though such a life we have, / As but so many mandrakes on his grave. / What had his growth and generation done, / When, what we are, his putrefaction / Sustains in us, earth, which griefs animate? / Nor hath our world now other soul than that; / And could grief get so high as heaven, that choir, / Forgetting this their new joy, would desire / -With grief to see him-he had stay'd below, / To rectify our errors they foreknow. / Is the other centre, reason, faster then? / Where should we look for that, now we're not men? / For if our reason be our connection / Of causes, now to us there can be none. / For, as if all the substances were spent, / 'Twere madness to enquire of accident, / So is 't to look for reason, he being gone, / The only subject reason wrought upon. / If fate have such a chain, whose divers links / Industrious man discerneth, as he thinks, / When miracle doth come, and so steal in / A new link, man knows not where to begin. / At a much deader fault must reason be, / Death having broke off such a link as he. / But now, for us, with busy proof to come, / That we've no reason, would prove we had some. / So would just lamentations; therefore we / May safelier say, that we are dead, than he; / So, if our griefs we do not well declare, / We've double excuse; he is not dead, and we are. / Yet I would not die yet; for though I be / Too narrow to think him, as he is he / -Our souls best baiting and mid-period, / In her long journey, of considering God- / Yet, no dishonour, I can reach him thus, / As he embraced the fires of love, with us. / O may I, since I live, but see or hear / That she-intelligence which moved this sphere, / I pardon fate, my life; whoe'er thou be, / Which hast the noble conscience, thou art she. / I conjure thee by all the charms he spoke, / By th' oaths, which only you two never broke, / By all the souls ye sigh'd, that if you see / These lines, you wish I knew your history; / So, much as you two mutual heavens were here, / I were an angel, singing what you were.