Virtus Rediviva :: :: University of Virginia Library

Come saddest Muse, tragick Melpomine,
Help me to weep, or sigh an Elegie;
And from dumb grief recover so much breath,
As may serve to express my sovereigns death.
But that's not all; had Natures oil been spent,
And all the treasury of life she lent
Exhausted: had his latest sand been run,
And the three fatal Sisters thred been spun;
Or laden with yeares, and mellow had he dropt
Into our mothers bosome; not thus lopt,
We could have born it. But thus hew'd from life
B'an Axe, more hasty than the cruel knife
Of grisly Atropos; thus to be torn
From us, whom loyal death would have forborn,
This strikes us dead. Hence Nero shall be kind
Accounted, he but wished, and that wish confin'd
Within the walls of Rome; but here we see
Three Kingdoms at one blow beheaded be:
And instead of the one head of a King,
Hundreds of Hydra-headed Monsters spring.
Scarce can I think of this, and not engage
My Muse to muster her Poetick rage,
To scourge those Gyants, whose bold hands have rent
This glorious Sun from out our Firmament,
Put out the light of Israel, that they might
Act their black deeds securely in the night:
When none but new and foolish lights appear,
Not to direct, but cheat the traveller.

But biting births are monstrous, Ours must be
(My Midwife Muse) a weeping Elegie.
Well may we, like some of whom Stories write,
From this Sun-set in mourning spend our night:
Until we see a second Sun arise,
That may exhale those vapours from our eyes.
Since the breath of our nostrils we have lost,
We are but moving statues at the most,
Our wisedome, reason, justice, all are dead,
As parts that liv'd, and died with our Head.
How can we speak his praise, or our loss, when
Our tongue of language silenc'd is with him.
Or can our fainter pensils hope to paint
These rayes of Majesty, which spake him Saint?
In mortal weeds, not man; As great a King
Of virtues, as of men; A sacred thing,
To such an heighth of eminency rais'd,
Easier by far to be admir'd than prais'd.
'Twould puzzle the sage Plutarch now to tell,
Or finde on earth our Charls's parallel.
Let Rome and Greece of Heroes boast no more,
To make our One, would beggar all their store.
Weep ye three Orphan Kingdoms, weep, for He
To you was truly Pater Patriæ.
Mourn too Religion, Liberty, and Lawes,
He was your Martyr, and died in your cause.
Levy a tax of grief, for who'll deny,
For this so general loss, a general cry.
Though to bear arms be, yet I know no reason
That loyal tears should be accounted treason.

Let not thy grief be small, I thee intreat,
Britain, for him who onely made thee Great.