It seems to me probable that the Elegie, 'Sorrow, who to this house', was an early and tentative experiment in this kind of poetry, on the death of some one, we cannot now say whom, perhaps the father of the Woodwards or some other of his earlier correspondents and friends.
The Elegie headed Death is also printed in a somewhat puzzling fashion. In 1633 it follows the lyrics abruptly with the bald title Elegie. It is not in D, H49, Lec, nor was it in the MS. resembling this which 1633 used for the bulk of the poems. In HN also it bears no title indicating the subject of the poem. The other MSS. all describe it as an Elegie upon the death of Mris Boulstred, and from 1633 and several MSS. it appears that it was sent to the Countess of Bedford with the verse Letter (p. [227]), 'You that are shee and you, that's double shee'. It is possible that the MSS. are in error and that the dead friend is not Miss Bulstrode but Lady Markham, for the closing line of the letter compares her to Judith:
Yet but of Judith no such book as she.
But Judith was, like Lady Markham, a widow. The tone of the poem too supports this conclusion. The Elegy on Miss Bulstrode lays stress on her youth, her premature death. In this and the other Elegy (whose title assigns it to Lady Markham) the stress is laid on the saintliness and asceticism of life becoming a widow.
Page 267. Elegie upon ... Prince Henry.
The death of Prince Henry (1594-1612) evoked more elegiac poetry Latin and English than the death of any single man has probably ever done. See Nichols's Progresses of James I, pp. 504-12. He was the hope of that party, the great majority of the nation, which would fain have taken a more active part in the defence of the Protestant cause in Europe than James was willing to venture upon. Donne's own Elegie appeared in a collection edited by Sylvester: 'Lachrymae Lachrymarum, or The Spirit of Teares distilled from the untimely Death of the Incomparable Prince Panaretus. By Joshua Sylvester. The Third Edition, with Additions of His Owne and Elegies. 1613. Printed by Humphrey Lownes.' Sylvester's own poem is followed by poems in Latin, Italian, and English by Joseph Hall and others, and then by a separate title-page: Sundry Funerall Elegies ... Composed by severall Authors. The authors are G. G. (probably George Gerrard), Sir P. O., Mr. Holland, Mr. Donne, Sir William Cornwallis, Sir Edward Herbert, Sir Henry Goodyere, and Henry Burton. Jonson told Drummond 'That Done said to him, he wrott that Epitaph on Prince Henry Look to me, Faith to match Sir Ed: Herbert in obscurenesse' (Drummond's Conversations, ed. Laing). Donne's elegy was printed with some carelessness in the Lachrymae Lachrymarum. The editor of 1633 has improved the punctuation in places.
The obscurity of the poem is not so obvious as its tasteless extravagance: 'The death of Prince Henry has shaken in me both Faith and Reason, concentric circles or nearly so (l. 18), for Faith does not contradict Reason but transcend it.' See Sermons 50. 36. 'Our Faith is shaken because, contemplating his greatnesse and its influence on other nations, we believed that with him was to begin the age of peace:
Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas,
Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
But by his death this faith becomes heresy. Reason is shaken because reason passes from cause to effect. Miracle interrupts this progress, and the loss of him is such a miracle as brings all our argument to a standstill. We can predict nothing with confidence.' In his over-subtle, extravagant way Donne describes the shattering of men's hopes and expectations.