University of Virginia Library

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An Elegy and Epitaph,

Sacred to the immortal memory of that deplored, and unparallel'd Lady, The Lady Mary Roper. Lately a Loyal Wife to the Right Honourable Christopher Lord Roper, Baron of Tenham, and Sister to the Worshipfull, Sir Francis Englefield, Baronet.

Who in her prime of Youth, Beauty, and Virtue, Cancel'd the Bonds of her Creation, by exchanging this Temporal Life, for Eternal Felicity.

The Elegy.

Take heed good Reader, for unlesse thy eyes
Are fitted to become a Sacrifice,
This is no Object for thy sight: We have
Emptied a Sea of Sorrow in one Grave:
She is deceas'd in whose bright Soul did move,
All that good men admire and Angels love;
To whose bright eyes more lustre did resort,
Then would illuminate a Princes Court:
Whose Beauty, though in yon Celestial Sphere,
Cannot, be sure, much brighter then 'twas here:
Fair as unshaded light, or as the day
In its first birth, when all the year was May;
Sweet as the Altars smoak when as it flies,
In zeal from an accepted Sacrifice;
Fragrant as Beds of Roses, or the blew
Violet whose veins swel with the morning dew.

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Kind as the willing Saints and chaster far
Then in their Prayers forgiven Hermits are:
In brief, she had whatever was call'd good
That wore the interest of flesh and blood;
You'd say (had you this beauty look'd upon)
The Soul had then her best apparel on.
Reader, I see thy Tears begin to fall,
Therefore this brevity shall shut up all;
For fear thou flow from hence (in a Spring-tide)
To Heaven to be further satisfi'de:
Yet ere thou dri'st thy eyes, prithee vouchsafe
With reverend care to read her Epitaph.