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The Poems of Thomas Pestell

Edited with an account of his life and work by Hannah Buchan

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On the Lady Berklay: 1620
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16

On the Lady Berklay: 1620

You British Faeries, saffron-colourd Elfes
You stuft out puppetts, least parts of your selfes
For hir in whom each virtue was at rest
Wise—noble Berklay,—all-yet-vnexprest
While I with sad lines peice my broken voice
Doe as becomes you; wantonly reioice.
Be glad as schoolboys when their master dies
As theiues when day is done: as starrs that rise
When Phœbus setts; as meteors in the light
Vnheard, vnseene, that crack & blaze by night
Be freely wicked now, worse every way
Then all new books & ballades sing or say
Be this your sexes crowne; it synns invents
Transcending all the tenn commandements
What Iesuits can not name, nor we putt by
With all the libera's in our Lytanie
For she the quickrule & the liuing lawe
Whose farr fam'd sample, in some little awe
Retain'd your swelling headlong vanitie
Is lifted hence. 'T were vaine to question thee
Father of Spirits for hirs taking in
Tis thy worke ever when the waues of syn
Roule high & threat an vniversall sea
With outstretch'd arme to pluck thine owne away
Nor are thy mercies [vn]apparent here
That she whose youth a martyrdome did weare
In riper age shou'd fall to thee, & so
Sans paines of Age, to crouns in heaven goe.
So iust & evenly thy Bountie brings
On black swolne morns, the brightest Euenings.