by Loves inflaming RAY Is lost * For ever and for AY Elegiack Poems An Elegie on the Death of Mr. John Steward IF a sad Stranger may presume to mourn And build in Verse an Altar ore an Urn If Tears that com from Heart-instructed Eyes Appear no despicable Sacrifice If you 'll conceive Sorrow can keep her Court In Souls that have the Cause but by Report Or if the loss of virtue you believe Can make its Lover though a Stranger grieve Admit my Wet Oblation which imparts Something that shews th' effects of mourning Hearts You who have had no Tears for your own Crimes And cannot vent a Sigh for these sad Times Within whose juiccless Eyes was never seen Drops but proceeding from a tickled Spleen And you who valor-harden'd never cou'd Bestow one stream to see a Sea of Bloud Though of your Sons or Brothers Come to me I le teach you true grief in this Elegie Steward is dead a man whom Truth and Fame With Virtue ever shall imbalm his Name Crave although Young who in his heart did prize Learning and yet not wittier than wise Religious without Faction and could be Courteous without the Court Hypocrisie Just to his Friends not Hatefull to his Foes For he had none though Virtue seldom goes By Envie unattended He was one In whom appear'd much of Perfection But Death the due of Nature must be paid Beauty and Strength must in a Grave be laid So hasty and unwilling to defer The time is our great grim Commissioner Then let us mourn let our true Sorrow swim That he is not with us or we with him 'T is Good to mourn for Good as to Regard Or pity is a kinde of a Reward His latest precious Breathings had respect To nothing more than divine Dialect Which he committed to his mourning Friends In Exhortations for their better Ends Unlocks his breast which onely could express Aspiring Prayers and pious pensiveness Thus like a Traveller that will not stray To any talk but 's journey and his way Our Peregrine discourseth till at last As Tapers near their end give greatest blast He dies and all the Duty I can do Is on his Herse to fix a Line or two The Epitaph UNderneath this Marble lies Youth's decay that Merchants prize Who trades for what is just and wise On this Urn let no man laugh Reader if thou keep him safe His Name shall be thy Epitaph Let no one here presume to Read Unless he be by sorrow lead To drop a Tear upon the dead It shall be but lent for when Thou com'st to th' period of all Men His Friends shall pay thy Drops agen On the Death of the most worthily honour'd Mr. John Sidney who dyed sull of the Small Pox SIdney is dead a Man whose name makes furrows In his Friends Cheeks channel'd with Tears for Sorrows Within whose Microcosm was combin'd All Ornaments of Body and of Minde In whose good Acts you might such vollumes see As did exceed th' extent of Heraldry Whose well-composed Excellencies wrought Beyond the largest scope of humane thought Indeed within his Life 's short little Span Was all could be contracted in one Man And He that would write his true Elegie Must not Court Muses but Divinity He 's Dead But Death I have a Speech in vain Directed unto Thee where I complain Upon thy cruel Office that could find No way to part his Body and his Mind But by a fatal ficknesse that confounds The beautious Patient with so many wounds Sure when thou mad'st his Fabrick to shiver Thou could'st not chuse but empty all thy Quiver What Man to all odds open in the Wars Dies with such a Solemnity of Scarrs Yet his great Spirit gives the Reason why Without that Number Sidney could not die And therefore we will Pen it in his Story What thou intend'st his Ruine is his Glory So when the Heavenly Globe I 've look'd upon Have I beheld the Constellation Of Jupiter and on all parts descri'd Th' illuminated Body stellified Sprinkled about with Stars so that you might Behold his Limbs and Hair powder'd with Light This wee 'l apply that though we lose him here His Soul shall shine in a Caelestial Sphere The Epitaph IN this sacred Urn there lies Till the last Trump make it rise A Light that 's wanting in the Skies A Corps inveloped with Stars Who though a Stranger to the Wars Was mark'd with many hundred Scars Death at once spent all his store Of Darts which this fair Body bore Though fewer had kill'd many more For him our own salt Tears we quaff Whose Virtues shall preserve him safe Beyond the power of Epitaph An Elegie on the lamented Death of the virtuous Mis Anne Phillips Dedicate to her Son and Heir Mr. Edmond Philips REligious Creature on thy sacred Herse Let my sad Muse ingrave a weeping Verse In watry Characters which nere shall dry Whil'st Men survive to write an Elegy Dull Brass Proud Marble and Arabian Gold Though they tyre Time and Ruine shall not hold Their aged Letters half so long as we Shall keep thy living worth in Memory Obedience was thy study Truth thy aim Wisdome thy worship Fortitude thy fame Patience thy peace and all good Eys might see Thou did'st retain Faith Hope and Charity Within the holy treasurie of thy Mind Were the choise vertues of all Women-kind Nothing that had affinity with good But liv'd within thy Spirit or thy Bloud No costly Marble need on thee be spent Thy deathlesse Worth is thine own Monument Thoughts of Life and Death written upon the occasion ex tempore I Never look on Life but with a loathing When it is sterril and conduceth nothing To my Eternal Being but when I Find it devoted to the Deity To love my Neighbour and obey that State Which God hath made next and immediate Under his sacred Power when I have will To Forgive him that doth me greatest ill To calm my Passions to content my Friends And do no Acts that savour of self-ends Then I love Life but wanting this I have No joy but to exchange it for a Grave An Epitaph on the Death of an Organist WIthin this Earth a place of low condition Intomb'd here lies an exquisite Musician Living he thriv'd by Concord and agreeing Looking from all things to Eternal being In Equal Rule and Space he lead his life A constant honest Consort to his Wife Much troubled Musick suffer'd such derision By many that began Points of Division He now without controul no question sings Eternal Anthems to the King of Kings An Epitaph on Himself NAy Reade and spare not Passenger My sense is now past feeling Who to my Grave a Wound did bear Within past Phisicks healing But do not if thou mean to Wed To read my Story tarry Least thou Envy me this cold Bed Rather than live to marry For a long strife with a lewd Wife Worst of all Ills beside Made me grow weary of my Life So I fell sick and died An Epitaph on a Strumpet buried at Gravesend once at my landing there to go to Canterbury WE read that Sacred Solomon would have No nice distinction 'twixt a Whore and Grave Since it is so then now it may be said That heare a Grave within a Grave is laid She was no Sextons wife yet now and than Suspition said she buried many a Man But now the Grave is dead why then my Friend The worst is past Thou 'rt Welcome to Graves-end An Epitaph on my worthy Friend Mr. John Kirk REader Within this Dormitory lies The wet Memento of a Widdows Eys A Kirk though not of Scotland One in whom Loyalty liv'd and Faction found no room No Conventicle Christian but he Died A Kirk of England by the Mothers side In brief to let you know what you have lost Kirk was a Temple of the Holy Ghost FINIS John 19.19 Matth. 26.53 Mar. 27.30 Mar. 14.45 Luke 23.7 Mar. 27.26 Mat. 26.24 Matth. 27.23 Matth. 27.4 Mat. 26.61 John 19.17 Mark 15.21 Mark 15.22 Joh. 19.19 Luke 23.34 Mark 15.34 Mar. 15.37 Mat. 27.52,53 Ephes. 2.20 * Rob. Wisdom