influence all impression came But by receivers impotencies lame Who though she could not transubstantiate All states to gold yet guilded every state So that some Princes have some temperance Some Counsellers some purpose to advance The common profit and some people have Some stay no more then Kings should give to crave Some women have some taciturnity Some nunneries some graines of chastitie She that did thus much and much more could doe But that our age was Iron and rustie too Shee she is dead she 's dead when thou knowst this Thou knowst how drie a Cinder this world is And learn'st thus much by our Anatomy That 't is in vaine to dew or mollifie It with thy teares or sweat or blood nothing Is worth our travaile griefe or perishing But those rich joyes which did possesse her heart Of which she 's now partaker and a part But as in cutting up a man that 's dead The body will not last out to have read On every part and therefore men direct Their speech to parts that are of most effect So the worlds carcasse would not last if I Were punctuall in this Anatomy Nor smels it well to hearers if one tell Them their disease who faine would think thy're well Here therefore be the end and blessed maid Of whom is meant what ever hath been said Or shall be spoken well by any tongue Whose name refines course lines and makes prose song Accept this tribute and his first yeares rent Who till his darke short tapers end be spent As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth Will yearely celebrate thy second birth That is thy death for though the soule of man Be got when man is made 't is borne but than When man doth die our body 's as the wombe And as a Mid-wife death directs it home And you her creatures whom she workes upon And have your last and best concoction From her example and her vertue if you In reverence to her do thinke it due That no one should her praises thus rehearse As matter fit for Chronicle not verse Vouchsafe to call to minde that God did make A last and lasting'st peece a song He spake To Moses to deliver unto all That song because hee knew they would let fall The Law the Prophets and the History But keepe the song still in their memory Such an opinion in due measure made Me this great office boldly to invade Nor could incomprehensiblenesse deterre Mee from thus trying to emprison her Which when I saw that a strict grave could doe I saw not why verse might not do so too Verse hath a middle nature heaven keepes Soules The Grave keepes bodies Verse the Fame enroules A Funerall ELEGIE 'T Is lost to trust a Tombe with such a guest Or to confine her in a marble chest Alas what 's Marble Jeat or Porphyrie Priz'd with the Chrysolite of either eye Or with those Pearles and Rubies which she was Joyne the two Indies in one Tombe 't is glasse And so is all to her materials Though every inch were ten Escurials Yet she 's demolish'd can wee keepe her then In works of hands or of the wits of men Can these memorials ragges of paper give Life to that name by which name they must live Sickly alas short-liv'd aborted bee Those carcasse verses whose soule is not shee And can shee who no longer would be shee Being such a Tabernacle stoop to be In paper wrapt or when shee would not lie In such a house dwell in an Elegie But'tis no matter wee may well allow Verse to live so long as the world will now For her death wounded it The world containes Princes for armes and counsellors for braines Lawyers for tongues Divines for hearts and more The rich for stomackes and for backs the poore The officers for hands merchants for feet By which remote and distant Countries meet But those fine spirits which do tune and set This Organ are those peeces which beget Wonder and love and these were shee and shee Being spent the world must needs decrepit bee For since death will proceed to triumph still He can finde nothing after her to kill Except the world it selfe so great was shee Thus brave and confident may Nature bee Death cannot give her such another blow Because shee cannot such another show But must wee say she 's dead may 't not be said That as a sundred clocke is peecemeale laid Not to be lost but by the makers hand Repollish'd without errour then to stand Or as the Affrique Niger streame enwombs It selfe into the earth and after comes Having first made a naturall bridge to passe For many leagues farre greater then it was May 't not be said that her grave shall restore Her greater purer firmer then before Heaven may say this and joy in 't but can wee Who live and lacke her here this vantage see What is 't to us alas if there have beene An Angell made a Throne or Cherubin Wee lose by 't and as aged men are glad Being tastlesse growne to joy in joyes they had So now the sick starv'd world must feed upon This joy that we had her who now is gone Rejoyce then Nature and this World that you Fearing the last fires hastning to subdue Your force and vigour ere it were neere gone Wisely bestow'd and laid it all on one One whose cleare body was so pure and thinne Because it need disguise no thought within 'T was but a through-light scarfe her minde t'inroule Or exhalation breath'd out from her Soule One whom all men who durst no more admir'd And whom who ere had worke enough desir'd As when a Temple 's built Saints emulate To which of them it shall be consecrate But as when heaven lookes on us with new eyes Those new starres every Artist exercise VVhat place they should assigne to them they doubt Argue ' and agree not till those starres goe out So the world studied whose this peece should be Till shee can be no bodies else nor shee But like a Lampe of Balsamum desir'd Rather t' adorne then last she soone expir'd Cloath'd in her virgin white integritie For marriage though it doth not staine doth die To scape th'infirmities which wait upon VVoman she went away before sh'was one And the worlds busie noyse to overcome Tooke so much death as serv'd for opium For though she could not nor could chuse to dye She'ath yeelded to too long an extasie Hee which not knowing her said History Should come to reade the booke of destiny How faire and chast humble and high she'ad been Much promis'd much perform'd at not fifteene And measuring future things by things before Should turne the leafe to reade and reade no more VVould thinke that either destiny mistooke Or that some leaves were torne out of the booke But 't is not so Fate did but usher her To yeares of reasons use and then inferre Her destiny to her selfe which liberty She tooke but for thus much thus much
our land waters teares of passion vent Our waters then above our firmament Teares which our Soule doth for her sins let fall Take all a brackish tast and Funerall And even those teares which should wash sin are sin We after Gods Noe drowne the world againe Nothing but man of all invenom'd things Doth worke upon itselfe with inborne stings Teares are false Spectacles we cannot see Through passions mist what wee are or what shee In her this sea of death hath made no breach But as the tide doth wash the slimie beach And leaves embroderd workes upon the sand So is her flesh refin'd by deaths cold hand As men of China ' after an ages stay Do take up Porcelane where they buried Clay So at this grave her limbecke which refines The Diamonds Rubies Saphires Pearles Mines Of which this flesh was her soule shall inspire Flesh of such stuffe as God when his last fire Annuls this world to recompence it shall Make and name then th'Elixar of this All. They say the sea when it gaines loseth too If carnall Death the yonger brother doe Usurpe the body 'our soule which subject is To th' elder death by sinne is freed by this They perish both when they attempt the just For graves our trophies are and both deaths dust So unobnoxious now she'hath buried both For none to death sinnes that to sinne is loth Nor doe they die which are not loth to die So hath she this and that virginity Grace was in her extremely diligent That kept her from sinne yet made her repent Of what small spots pure white complaines Alas How little poyson cracks a christall glasse She sinn'd but just enough to let us see That extreme truth lack'd little of a lye Making omissions acts laying the touch Of sinne on things that sometimes may be such As Moses Cherubines whose natures doe Surpasse all speed by him are winged too So would her soule already'in heaven seeme then To clyme by teares the common staires of men How fit she was for God I am content To speake that death his vaine hast may repent How fit for us how even and how sweet How good in all her titles and how meet To have reform'd this forward heresie That woman can no parts of friendship bee How Morall how Divine shall not be told Lest they that heare her vertues thinke her old And lest we take Deaths part and make him glad Of such a prey and to his tryumph adde Elegie on Mris Boulstred DEath I recant and say unsaid by mee What ere hath slip'd that might diminish thee Spirituall treason atheisme 't is to say That any can thy Summons disobey Th' earths face is but thy Table there are set Plants cattell men dishes for Death to eate In a rude hunger now hee millions drawes Into his bloody or plaguy or sterv'd jawes Now hee will seeme to spare and doth more wast Eating the best first well preserv'd to last Now wantonly he spoiles and eates us not But breakes off friends and lets us peecemeale rot Nor will this earth serve him he sinkes the deepe Where harmelesse fish monastique silence keepe Who were Death dead by Roes of living sand Might spunge that element and make it land He rounds the aire and breakes the hymnique notes In birds Heavens choristers organique throats Which if they did not dye might seeme to bee A tenth ranke in the heavenly hierarchie O strong and long-liv'd death how cam'st thou in And how without Creation didst begin Thou hast and shalt see dead before thou dyest All the foure Monarchies and Antichrist How could I thinke thee nothing that see now In all this All nothing else is but thou Our births and life vices and vertues bee Wastfull consumptions and degrees of thee For wee to live our bellowes weare and breath Nor are wee mortall dying dead but death And though thou beest O mighty bird of prey So much reclaim'd by God that thou must lay All that thou kill'st at his feet yet doth hee Reserve but few and leaves the most to thee And of those few now thou hast overthrowne One whom thy blow makes not ours nor thine own She was more stories high hopelesse to come To her Soule thou'hast offer'd at her lower roome Her Soule and body was a King and Court But thou hast both of Captaine mist and fort As houses fall not though the King remove Bodies of Saints rest for their soules above Death gets'twixt soules and bodies such a place As sinne insinuates 'twixt just men and grace Both worke a separation no divorce Her Soule is gone to usherup her corse Which shall be'almost another soule for there Bodies are purer then best Soules are here Because in her her virtues did outgoe Her yeares would'st thou O emulous death do so And kill her young to thy losse must the cost Of beauty ' and wit apt to doe harme be lost What though thou found'st her proofe'gainst sins of youth Oh every age a diverse sinne pursueth Thou should'st have stay'd and taken better hold Shortly ambitious covetous when old She might have prov'd and such devotion Might once have stray'd to superstition If all her vertues must have growne yet might Abundant virtue'have bred a proud delight Had she persever'd just there would have bin Some that would sinne mis-thinking she did sinne Such as would call her friendship love and faine To sociablenesse a name profane Or sinne by tempting or not daring that By wishing though they never told her what Thus might'st thou'have slain more soules had'st thou not crost Thy selfe and to triumph thine army lost Yet though these wayes be lost thou hast left one Which is immoderate griefe that she is gone But we may scape that sinne yet weepe as much Our teares are due because we are not such Some teares that knot of friends her death must cost Because the chaine is broke but no linke lost To Sr Henry Goodyere WHo makes the Past a patterne for next yeare Turnes no new leafe but still the same things reads Seene things he sees againe heard things doth heare And makes his life but like a paire of beads A Palace when 't is that which it should be Leaves growing and stands such or else decayes But hee which dwels there is not so for hee Strives to urge upward and his fortune raise So had your body'her morning hath her noone And shall not better her next change is night But her faire larger guest to'whom Sun and Moone Are sparkes and short liv'd claimes another right The noble Soule by age growes lustier Her appetite and her digestion mend Wee must not sterve nor hope to pamper her With womens milke and pappe unto the end Provide you manlyer dyet you have seene All libraries which are Schools Camps Courts But aske your Garners if you have not beene In harvests too indulgent to your sports Would you redeeme it then your selfe transplant A while from hence Perchance outlandish ground Beares no
that vertuous man there was And as if man feeds on mans flesh and so Part of his body to another owe Yet at the last two perfect bodies rise Because God knowes where every Atome lyes So if one knowledge were made of all those Who knew his minutes well hee might dispose His vertues into names and ranks but I Should injure Nature Vertue and Destinie Should I divide and discontinue so Vertue which did in one intirenesse grow For as hee that would say spirits are fram'd Of all the purest parts that can be nam'd Honours not spirits halfe so much as hee Which sayes they have no parts but simple bee So is't of vertue for a point and one Are much entirer then a million And had Fate meant to have his vertues told It would have let him live to have beene old So then that vertue in season and then this We might have seene and said that now he is Witty now wise now temperate now just In good short lives vertues are faine to thrust And to be sure betimes to get a place When they would exercise lacke time and space So was it in this person forc'd to bee For lack of time his owne epitome So to exhibit in few yeares as much As all the long breath'd Chronicles can touch As when an Angell down from heav'n doth flye Our quick thought cannot keepe him company Wee cannot thinke now hee is at the Sunne Now through the Moon now he through th' aire doth run Yet when he 's come we know he did repaire To all twixt Heav'n and Earth Sunne Moon and Aire And as this Angell in an instant knowes And yet wee know this sodaine knowledge growes By quick amassing severall formes of things Which he successively to order brings When they whose slow-pac'd lame thoughts cannot goe So fast as hee thinke that he doth not so Just as a perfect reader doth not dwell On every syllable nor stay to spell Yet without doubt hee doth distinctly see And lay together every A and B So in short liv'd good men is'not understood Each severall vertue but the compound good For they all vertues paths in that pace tread As Angells goe and know and as men read O why should then these men these lumps of Balme Sent hither the worlds tempest to becalme Before by deeds they are diffus'd and spred And so make us alive themselves be dead O Soule O circle why so quickly bee Thy ends thy birth and death clos'd up in thee Since one foot of thy compasse still was plac'd In heav'n the other might securely'have pac'd In the most large extent through every path Which the whole world or man the abridgment hath Thou knowst that though the tropique circles have Yea and those small ones which the Poles engrave All the same roundnesse evennesse and all The endlesnesse of the equinoctiall Yet when we come to measure distances How here how there the Sunne affected is When he doth faintly worke and when prevaile Onely great circles then can be our scale So though thy circle to thy selfe expresse All tending to thy endlesse happinesse And wee by our good use of it may trye Both how to live well young and how to die Yet since we must be old and age endures His Torrid Zone at Court and calentures Of hot ambitions irrelegions ice Zeales agues and hydroptique avarice Infirmities which need the scale of truth As well as lust and ignorance of youth Why did'st thou not for these give medicines too And by thy doing tell us what to doe Though as small pocket-clocks whose every wheele Doth each mismotion and distemper feele Whose hands get shaking palsies and whose string His sinewes slackens and whose Soule the spring Expires or languishes whose pulse the flye Either beates not or beates unevenly Whose voice the Bell doth rattle or grow dumbe Or idle ' as men which to their last houres come If these clockes be not wound or be wound still Or be not set or set at every will So youth is easiest to destruction If then wee follow all or follow none Yet as in great clocks which in steeples chime Plac'd to informe whole towns to'imploy their time An error doth more harme being generall When small clocks faults only'on the wearer fall So worke the faults of age on which the eye Of children servants or the State relie Why wouldst not thou then which hadst such a soule A clock so true as might the Sunne controule And daily hadst from him who gave it thee Instructions such as it could never be Disordered stay here as a generall And great Sun-dyall to have set us All O why wouldst thou be any instrument To this unnaturall course or why consent To this not miracle but Prodigie That when the ebbs longer then flowings be Vertue whose flood did with thy youth begin Should so much faster ebb out then flow'in Though her flood was blowne in by thy first breath All is at once sunke in the whirle-poole death Which word I would not name but that I see Death else a desert growne a Court by thee Now I grow sure that if a man would have Good companie his entry is a grave Mee thinkes all Cities now but Anthills bee Where when the severall labourers I see For children house Provision taking paine They' are all but Ants carrying eggs straw and grain And Church-yards are our cities unto which The most repaire that are in goodnesse rich There is the best concourse and confluence There are the holy suburbs and from thence Begins Gods City New Jerusalem Which doth extend her utmost gates to them At that gate then Triumphant soule dost thou Begin thy Triumph But since lawes allow That at the Triumph day the people may All that they will ' gainst the Triumpher say Let me here use that freedome and expresse My griefe though not to make thy Triumph lesse By law to Triumphs none admitted bee Till they as Magistrates get victorie Though then to thy force all youthes foes did yield Yet till fit time had brought thee to that field To which thy ranke in this state destin'd thee That there thy counsailes might get victorie And so in that capacitie remove All jealousies 'twixt Prince and subjects love Thou could'st no title to this triumph have Thou didst intrude on death usurp'st a grave That though victoriously thou hadst fought as yet But with thine owne affections with the heate Of youths desires and colds of ignorance But till thou should'st successefully advance Thine armes'gainst forraine enemies which are Both Envy and acclamation popular For both these engines equally defeate Though by a divers Mine those which are great Till then thy War was but a civill War For which to Triumph none admitted are No more are they who though with good successe â—n a defensive war their power expresse Before men triumph the dominion Must be enlarg'd and not preserv'd alone Why should'st thou then whose battailes were to win Thy selfe from those straits