vigil esse tuum
  Sed vivit nomen semper cum sole vigebit,
    Immemor Astrologi non erit ulla dies
  Saecla canent laudes, quas si percurrere cones,
    Arte opus est, Stellas qua numerare soles
  Haereat hoc carmen cinerum custodibus urnis,
    Hospes quod spargens marmora rore legat. 
  “Hic situs est, dignus nunquam cecidisse Propheta;
    Fatorum interpres fata inopina subit. 
  Versari aethereo dum vixit in orbe solebat: 
    Nunc humilem jactat Terra superba virum. 
  Sed Coelum metitur adhuc resupinus in urnae
    Vertitur in solitos palpebra clausa polos. 
  Huic busto invigilant solenni lampade Musaae
    Perpetuo nubes imbre sepulchra rigant. 
  Ille oculis movit distantia Sidera nostris,
    Illam amota oculis traxit ad astra Deus.”

An ELEGY upon the Death of WILLIAM LILLY, the Astrologer.

  Our Prophet’s gone; no longer may our ears
  Be charm’d with musick of th’ harmonious spheres. 
  Let sun and moon withdraw, leave gloomy night
  To shew their NUNCIO’S fate, who gave more light
  To th’ erring world, than all the feeble rays
  Of sun or moon; taught us to know those days
  Bright TITAN makes; follow’d the hasty sun
  Through all his circuits; knew th’ unconstant moon,
  And more unconstant ebbings of the flood;
  And what is most uncertain, th’ factious brood,
  Flowing in civil broils:  by the heavens could date
  The flux and reflux of our dubious state. 
  He saw the eclipse of sun, and change of moon
  He saw, but seeing would not shun his own: 
  Eclips’d he was, that he might shine more bright,
  And only chang’d to give a fuller light. 
  He having view’d the sky, and glorious train
  Of gilded stars, scorn’d longer to remain
  In earthly prisons:  could he a village love,
  Whom the twelve houses waited for above? 
  The grateful stars a heavenly mansion gave
  T’ his heavenly soul, nor could he live a slave
  To mortal passions, whose immortal mind,
  Whilst here on earth, was not to earth confin’d. 
  He must be gone, the stars had so decreed;
  As he of them, so they of him, had need. 
  This message ’twas the blazing comet brought;
  I saw the pale-fac’d star, and seeing thought
  (For we could guess, but only LILLY knew)
  It did some glorious hero’s fall foreshew: 
  A hero’s fall’n, whose death, more than a war,
  Or fire, deserv’d a comet:  th’ obsequious star
  Could do no less than his sad fate unfold,
  Who had their risings, and their settings told. 
  Some thought a plague, and some a famine near;
  Some wars from France, some fires at home did fear: 
  Nor did they fear too much:  scarce kinder fate,
  But plague of plagues befell th’ unhappy state
  When LILLY died.  Now swords may safely come
  From France or Rome, fanaticks plot at home. 
  Now an unseen, and unexpected hand,