 | Poems By John Hall |  |
48
Upon Samuel Ward D. D. the Lady Margarets Professour in Cambridge.
Were't not piacular to weep for theeThe world might put on mourning, and yet be
Below just grief, stupendous Man who told
By vast endowments that she grew not old.
But thine own hands have rais'd a monument
Farre greater then thy self, which shall be spent
When error conquers truth, and time shall be
No more, but swallow'd by Eternitie;
But when shall sullen darknesse fly away,
And thine own ectype Brownrigge give it day.
Or when shall ravish'd Europe understand,
How much she lost by thee, and by it gaind;
How well thou guardedst truth, how swift to close
With whatsoever Champion durst oppose;
Bear witnesse Dort, when Error could produce
The strength of reason and Arminius.
How did he loose their knots, how break their snares,
How meet their minings, how pluck up their tares.
49
His soft affections holy fury growe?
That had but Hell and Tyrants any roome,
There wanted nothing of a Martyrdome;
But Providence said no, and did consent
That oyle of time should not be spilt, but spent,
Nay, as the greatest flame doth ever fly
From failing Lamps, should'st in most glory die;
And as the Phenix when she doth prepare
To be her own both murderer and heire,
Makes richest spice her tombe and cradle be,
To quit and reassume mortality,
Even so thou (Seraph) spent thy minutes all,
In preparation for thy funerall,
And rais'd so great a pile, death could aspire
No greater honour then to put to fire:
That thus the flame might lend us light below,
But the sweet breathing smoake still upward goe.
| Poems By John Hall | |