Parents shame let it forgotten be And may the sad example die with thee It is not now thy grieved friends intent To render thee dull Pities argument Thou hast a bolder title unto fame And at Edge-Hill thou didst make good the claime When in thy Royal Masters Cause and Warre Thy ventur'd life brought off a noble skarre Nor did thy faithful services desist Till death untimely strook thee from the List. Though in that prouder vault then which doth tomb Thy ancestors thy body find not room Thine own deserts have purchas'd thee a place Which more renowned is then all thy race For in this earth thou dost ennâ—bled ly With marks of Valour and of Loyalty To my dead friend Ben Iohnson I See that wreath which doth the wearer arm 'Gainst the quick strokes of thunder is no charm To keep off deaths pale dart For Iohnson then Thou hadst been number'd still with living men Times sithe had fear'd thy Lawrel to invade Nor thee this subject of our sorrow made Amongst those many votaries who come To offer up their Garlands at thy Tombe Whil'st some more lofty pens in their bright verse Like glorious Tapers flaming on thy herse Shall light the dull and thankless world to see How great a maim it suffers wanting thee Let not thy learned shadow scorn that I Pay meaner Rites unto thy memory And since I nought can adde but in desire Restore some sparks which leapt from thine own fire What ends soever others quills invite I can pâ—otest it was no itch to write Nor any vain ambition to be read But meerly Love and Justice to the dead Which rais'd my fameless Muse and caus'd her bring These drops as tribute thrown into that spring To whose most rich and fruitful head we ow The purest streams of language which can flow For 't is but truth thou taught'st the ruder age To speake by Grammar and reform'dst the Stage Thy Comick Sock induc'd such purged sence A Lucrece might have heard without offence Amongst those soaring wits that did dilate Our English and advance it to the rate And value it now holds thy self was one Helpt lift it up to such proportion That thus refin'd and roab'd it shall not spare With the full Greek or Latine to compare For what tongue ever durst but ours translate Great Tully's Eloquence or Homers State Both which in their unblemisht lustre shine From Chapmans pen and from thy Catiline All I would ask for thee in recompence Of thy successful toyl and times expence Is onely this poor Boon that those who can Perhaps read French or talk Italian Or do the lofty Spaniard affect To shew their skill in Forrein Dialect Prove not themselves so unnaturally wise They therefore should their Mother-tongue despise As if her Poets both for style and wit Not equall'd or not pass'd their hest that writ Untill by studying Iohnson they have known The height and strength and plenty of their own Thus in what low earth or neglected room Soere thou sleep'st thy book shall be thy tomb Thou wilt go down a happy Coarse bestrew'd With thine own Flowres and feel thy self renew'd Whil'st thy immortal never-with'ring Bayes Shall yearly flourish in thy Readers praise And when more spreading Titles are forgot Or spight of all their Lead and Sear-cloth rot Thou wrapt and Shrin'd in thine own sheets wilt ly A Relick fam'd by all Posterity AN ELEGY Vpon Prince Henry's death KEep station Nature and rest Heaven sure On thy supporters shoulders lest past cure Thou dasht in ruâ—ne fall by a griefs weight Will make thy basis shrink and lay thy height Low as the Center Heark and feel it read Through the astonisht Kingdom Henry's dead It is enough who seeks to aggravate One strain beyond this prove more sharp his fate Then sad our doom The world dares not survive To parallel this woes superlative O killing Rhetorick of Death two words Breathe stronger terrours then Plague Fire or Swords Ere conquer'd This were Epitaph and Verse Worthy to be preâ—ixt in Natures herse Or Earths sad dissolution whose fall Will be less grievous though more generall For all the woe ruine ere buried Sounds in these fatal accents Henry's dead Cease then unable Poetry thy phrase Is weak and dull to strike us with amaze Worthy thy vaster subject Let none dare To coppy this sad hap but with despair Hanging at his quills point For not a stream Of Ink can write much less improve this Theam Invention highest wrought by grief or wit Must sink with him and on his Tomb-stone split Who like the dying Sun tells us the light And glory of our Day set in his Night AN ELEGY Vpon S. W. R. I Will not weep for 't were as great a sin To shed a tear for thee as to have bin An Actor in thy death Thy life and age Was but a various Scene on fortunes Stage With whom thou tugg'st strov'st ev'n out of breath In thy long toil nere master'd till thy death And then despight of trains and cruell wit Thou did'st at once subdue malice and it I dare not then so blast thy memory As say I do lament or pity thee Were I to choose a subject to bestow My pity on he should be one as low In spirit as desert That durst not dy But rather were content by slavery To purchase life or I would pity those Thy most industrious and friendly foes Who when they thought to makethee scandals story Lent thee a swifter flight to Heav'n and glory That thought by cutting off some wither'd dayes Which thou could'st spare them to eclipse thy praise Yet gave it brighter foil made thy ag'd fame Appear more white and fair then foul their shame And did promote an Execution Which but for them Nature and Age had done Such worthless things as these were onely born To live on Pities almes too mean for scorn Thou dy'dst an envious wonder whose high fate The world must still admire scarce imitate AN ELEGY Vpon the L. Bishop of London Iohn King SAd Relick of a blessed Soul whose trust We sealed up in this religious dust O do not thy low Exequies suspect As the cheap arguments of our neglect 'T was a commanded duty that thy grave As little pride as thou thy self should have Therefore thy covering is an humble stone And but a word for thy inscription When those that in the same earth neighbour thee Have each his Chronicle and Pedigree They have their waving pennons and their flagges Of Matches and Alliance formal bragges VVhen thou although from Ancestors thou came Old as the Heptarchy great as thy Name Sleep'st there inshrin'd in thy admired parts And hast no Heraldry but thy deserts Yet let not Them their prouder Marbles boast For They rest with less honour though more cost Go search the world and with your Mattox wound The groaning bosom of the patient ground Digge from the hidden veins of her dark womb All that is rare and precious for a tomb
lap Before he hath sayl'd over his own Map By which means he returnes his travel spent Less knowing of himself then when he went Who knowledge hunt kept under forrein locks May bring home wit to hold a Paradox Yet be fools still Therefore might I advise I would inform the soul before the eyes Make man into his proper Opticks look And so become the student and the book With his conception his first leaf begin What is he there but complicated sin When ripeâ— time and the approaching birth Ranks him among the creatures of the earth His wailing mother sends him forth to greet The light wrapt in a bloudy winding sheet As if he came into the world to crave No place to dwell in but bespeak a grave Thus like a red and tempest-boading morn His dawning is for being newly born He hayles th' ensuing storm with shrieks and cryes And fines for his admission with wet eyes How should that Plant whose leaf is bath'd in teaâ—s Bear but a bitter fruit in elder years Just such is this and his maturer age Teems with event more sad then the presage For view him higher when his childhoods span Is raised up to Youths Meridian When he goes proudly laden with the fruit Which health or strength or beauty contribute Yet as the mounted Canon batters down The Towres and goodly structures of a town So one short sickness will his force defeat And his frail Cittadell to rubbish beat How does a dropsie melt him to a floud Making each vein run water more then bloud A Chollick wracks him like a Northern gust And raging feavers crumble him to dust In which unhappy state he is made worse By his diseases then his makers curse God said in toyl and sweat he should earn bread And without labour not be nourished Here though like ropes of falling dew his sweat Hangs on his lab'ring brow he cannot eat Thus are his sins scourg'd in opposed themes And luxuries reveng'd by their extremes He who in health could never be content With Rarities fetcht from each Element Is now much more afflicted to delight His tasteless Palate and lost appetite Besides though God ordain'd that with the light Man should begin his work yet he made night For his repose in which the weary sense Repaires it self by rests soft recompence But now his watchful nights and troubled dayes Confused heaps of fear and fancy raise His chamber seems a loose and trembling mine His Pillow quilted with a Porcupine Paâ—â— makes his downy Couch sharp thornes appear And ev'ry feather prick him like a spear Thus when all forms of death about him keep He copies death in any form but sleep Poor walking-clay hast thou a mind to know To what unblest beginnings thou dost ow Thy wretched self fall sick a while and than Thou wilt conceive the pedigree of Man Learn shalt thou from thine own Anatomie That earth his mother wormes his sisters be That he 's a short-liv'd vapour upward wrought And by corruption unto nothing brought A stagg'ring Meteor by cross Planets beat Which often â—ecles and falles before his set A tree which withers faster then it growes A torch puff't out by ev'â—y wind that blowes A web of fourty weekes spun forth in pain And in a moment ravell'd out again This is the Model of frail man Then say That his duration's onely for a day And in that day more fits of changes pass Then Atomes run in the turn'd Hower-glass So that th' incessant cares which life invade Might for strong truth their heresie perswade Who did maintain that humane soules are sent Into the body for their punishment At least with that Greek Sage still make us cry Not to be born or being born to dy But Faith steers up to a more glorious scope Which sweetens our sharp passage and firm hope Anchors our torne Barks on a blessed shore Beyond the Dead sea we here ferry o're To this Death is our Pilot and disease The Agent which solicites our release Though crosses then poure on my restless head Or lingring sickness nail me to my bed Let this my Thoughts eternall comfort bee That my clos'd eyes a better light shall see And when by fortunes or by natures stroke My bodies earthen Pitcher must be broke My Soul like Gidâ—ons lamp from her crackt urn Shall Deaths black night to endlesse lustre turn The Dirge VVHat is th'Existence of Mans life But open war or slumber'd strife Where sickness to his sense presents The combat of the Elements And never feels a perfect Peace Till deaths cold hand signs his release It is a storm where the hot blood Out-vies in rage the boyling flood And each loud Passion of the mind Is like a furious gust of wind Which beats his Bark with many a Wave Till he casts Anchor in the Grave It is a flower which buds and growes And withers as the leaves disclose Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep Like fits of waking before sleep Then shrinks into that fatal mold Where its first being was enroll'd It is a dream whose seeming truth Is moraliz'd in age and youth Where all the comforts he can share As wandring as his faâ—cies aâ—e Till in a mist of dark decay The dreamer vanisâ— quiâ—e away It is a Diall which points out The Sun-set aâ— it moves about And shadowes out in lines of night The subtile stages of times flight Till all obscuring earth hath laid The body in perpetual shade It is a weary enterlude Which doth short joyes long woes include The World the Stage the Prologue tears The Acts vain hope and vary'd fears The Scene shuts up with loss of breath And leaves 〈◊〉 Epilogue but Death AN ELEGY Occasioned by the losse of the most incomparable Lady Stanhope daughter to the Earl of Northumberland LIghtned by that dimme Torch our sorrow bears We sadly trace thy Coffin with our tears And though the Ceremonious Rites are past Since thy fair body into earth was east Though all thy Haâ—chments into ragges are torne Thy Funerall Robes and Ornaments outworn We still thy mourners without Shew or Art With solemn Blacks hung round about our heart Thus constantly the Obsequieâ— renew Which to thy precious â—â—mory are due Yet think not that we rudely would invade The dark recess of thine untroubled shade Or give disturbance to that happy peace Which thou enjoy'st at full since thy release Much less in fullen murmurs do complain Of His decree who tooâ— thee back again And did e're Fame had spread thy vertues light Eclipse and fold thee up in endless night This like an act of envy not of grief Might doubt thy bliss and shake our own belief Whose studi'd wishes no proportion bear With joyes which crown thee now in glories sphere Know then blest Soul we for our selves not thee Seal our woes dictate by this Elegie Wherein our tears united in one streame Shall to succeeding times convey this theme Worth all mens pity who discern how rare Such
kind fate Those worst acts of my life incinerate He shall in story fill a glorious room Whose ashes and whose sins sleep in one Tomb. If now to my cold hearse thou deign to bring Some melting sighs as thy last offering My peacefull exequies are crown'd Nor shall I ask more honour at my Funerall Thou wilt more richly balm me with thy tears Then all the Nard fragrant Arabia bears And as the Paphian Queen by her griâ—fs show'r Brought up her dead Loves Spirit in a flow'r So by those precious drops rain'd from thine â—ies Out of my dust O may some â—ertue rise And like thy better Genius thee attend Till thou in my dark Period shalt end Lastly my constant truth let me commend To him thou chooâ—est next to be thy friend For witness all things good I would not have Thy Youth and Beauty married to my grave 'T would shew thou didst repent the style of wife Should'st thou relapâ—e into a single life They with preposterous grief the world delude Who mourn for their lost Mates in solitude Since Widdowhood more strongly doth enforce The much lamented lot of their divorce Themselves then of their losses guilty are Who may yet will not suffer a repaire Those were Barbarian wives that did invent Weeping to death at th'Husbandâ— Monument But in more civil Rites She doth approve Her first who ventures on a second Love For else it may be thought if She refrain She sped so ill Shee durst not trie again Up then my Love and choose some worthier one Who may supply my room when I am gone So will the stock of our affection thrive No less in death then were I still alive And in my urne I shall rejoyce that I Am both Testatour thus and Legacie The short Wooing LIke an Oblation set before a Shrine Fair One I offer up this heart of mine Whether the Saint accept my Gift or no I le neither fear not doubt before I know For he whose faint distrust prevents reply Doth his own suits denial prophecy Your will the sentence is Who free as Fate Can bid my love proceed or else retreat And from short views that veâ—diâ—â—t is decreed Which seldom doth one audience exceed Love asks no dull probation but like light Conveyes his nimble influence at first sight I need not therefore importune or press This were t'extort unwilling happiness And much against affection might I sin To tire and weary what I seek to win Towns which by lingring siege enforced be Oft make both sides repent the victorie Be Mistriss of your self and let me thrive Or suffer by your own prerogative Yet stay since you are Judge who in one breath Bear uncontrolled power of Life and Death Remember Sweet pity doth best become Those lips which must pronounce a Suitors doome If I find that my spark of chast desire Shall kindle into Hymens holy fire Else like sad flowers will these verses prove To stick the Coffin of rejected Love St. Valentines day NOw that each feâ—ther'd Chorister doth sing The glad approches of the welcome Spring Now Phoebus darts forth his more early beam And dips it later in the curâ—ed stream I should to custome prove a retrograde Did I still dote upon my sullen shade Oft have the seasons finisht and begun Dayes into Months those into years have run Since my cross Starres and inauspicious fate Doom'd me to linger here without my Mate Whose loss ere since befrosting my desire Left me an Altar without Gift or Fire I therefore could have wisht for your own sake That Fortune had design'd a nobler stake For you to draw then one whose fading day Like to a dedicated Taper lay Within a Tomb and long burnt out in vain Since nothing there saw better by the flame Yet since you like your Chance I must not try To marre it through my incapacity I here make title to it and proclaime How much you honour me to wenâ— my name Who can no form of gratitude devise But offer up my self your sacrifice Haâ—l then my worthy Lot and may each Morn Successive springs of joy to you be born May your content ne're wane untill my heart Grown Bankrupt wants good wishes to impart Henceforth I need not make the dust my Shrine Nor search the Grave for my lost Valentine To his unconstant Friend BUt say thou very woman why to me This fit of weakness and inconstancie What forfeit have I made of word or vow That I am rack't on thy displeasure now If I have done a fault I do not shame To cite it from thy lips give it a name I ask the banes stand forth and tell me why We should not in our wonted loves comply Did thy cloy'd appetite urge thee to trie If any other man could love as I I see friends are like clothes lad up whil'st new But after wearing cast though nere so true Or did thy fierce ambition long to make Some Lover turn a martyr for thy sake Thinking thy beauty had deserv'd no name Unless some one do perish in that flame Upon whose loving dust this sentence lies Here 's one was murther'd by his Mistriss eyes Or was 't because my love to thee was such I could not choose but blab it swear how much I was thy slave and doting let thee know I better could my self then thee forgo Hearken ye men that ere shall love like me I le give you counsel gratis if you be Possest of what you like let your fair friend Lodge in your bosom but no secrets send To seek their lodging in a female brest For so much is abated of your rest The Steed that comes to understand his strength Growes wild and casts his manager at length And that tame Lover who unlocks his heart Unto his Mistriss teaches her an art To plague himself shews her the secret way How She may tyrannize another day And now my fair unkindness thus to thee Mark how wise Passion and I agree Hear and be sorry for 't I will not die To expiate thy crime of levitie I walk not cross-arm'd neither eat and live Yea live to pity thy neglect not grieve That thou art from thy faith and promise gone Nor envy him who by my loss hath won Thou shalt perceive thy changing Moon-like fitâ— Have not infected me or turn'd my wits To Lunacie I do not mean to weep When I should eat oâ— sigh when I should sleep I will not fall upon my pointed quill Bleed ink and Poems or invention spill To contrive Ballads or weave Elegies For Nurses wearing when the infant cries Nor like th'enamour'd Tristrams of the time Despair in prose and hang my self in rhime Nor thither run upon my verses feet Where I shall none but fools or mad-men meet Who mid'st the silent shades and Myrtle walks Pule and do penance for their Mistress faults I 'm none of those poetick male-contents Born to make paper dear with my laments Or wild Orlando that will rail and vex And