University of Virginia Library

ELEGIACK POEMS.

An Elegie on his Inestimable friend, Mr. Richard Gunnell, Gent.

Goe sell your smiles for weeping, change your mirth
For mourning dirges, lave the pretious earth
Of my inestimable friend with teares
(Fertill as them the cheeke of Aprill weares,
When Flora propagates her blessing on
Th'approaching Daffadills) under this stone
Lyes his neglected ashes, Oh that they
Who knew his vertues best should let his Clay
Lye unregarded so, and not appeare
With a full sorrow, in each eye a teare
Once, daily ore his urne, how can they thinke
A pleasing thought, sit and securely drinke
Insatiate carrowses; these are they
Can lose both friends and sorrowes in one day
(Not worth my observation) let me turne
Againe to my sad duty, where ile mourne
Till my corporeall essence doe become
A glyding rivolet; and pay the summe
To thy deare memory; my streame shall lend
A drop to none les he hath lost a friend:
The melancholly mad-man that will prove
His passion for his Mistresse is but love,
Were best be thrifty in his teares, for I
Will not supply him though his mistresse dye;
My ford is thine deare Gunnell and for thee
My Christall Channell flowes so currently,
Tagus and great Pactolus may be proud
Of their red sands, let me my Rivers shrowd
In course Meanders, where the waters shall
In a griev'd murmure, Gunnell, Gunnell, call,
It is for thee I flow, for thee I glide,
I had retain'd my floods hadst thou not dyed.
And little water birds shall chaunt this theame,
Thy Iordan mourner is a Iordan streame.

An Epitaph on his kind friend, Mr. Iohn Honiman, Gent.

Thou that couldst never weepe, and know'st not why
Teares should be spent but in mans infancy,
Come and repent thy error for here lyes
A Theame for Angels to write Elegies,
Had they the losse as we have; such a one
As nature kild for his perfection,
And when shee sends those vertues backe agen
His stocke shall serve for twenty vertuous men.
In Aprill dyed this Aprill to finde May
In Paradise, or celebrate a day
With some celestiall creature, had he beene
Design'd for other then a Cherubin;
Earth would have gave him choice; he was a man
So sweetly good, that he who wisely can
Describe at large, must such another be,
Or court no Muses but Divinitie.
Here will I rest, for feare the Readers eyes
Vpon his urne become a Sacrifice.

An Elegie on Mr. Iohn Raven, Gent.

No sooner did sad Rumour wound my eares
With thy decease, but Myriads of teares
Sprung in my fluent eyes, I sigh'd, Oh me
Is Raven dead, why could the fatall THREE
Not give some dispensation for a man
Deserv'd the yeares of Nestor; I began
Much to invoke the destinies, but they
Gave me no answer, sure they doe obey
Some greater power, whose immense soveraignty
Admits no Inquisition How or Why;
(The curse of frailty) we but see to chuse,
Chuse to enjoy, ere we enjoy we lose:
So is thy life to us, what if thou be
Enthron'd a Monarch for thy piety,
Our losse is still the same, we lose our prize,
Because we cannot see thee with these eyes,
We doe not doubt thy welfare (dearest friend)
But doe beleeve thy meritorious end
Hath won eternity, and yet indeed
We cannot chuse but grieve, teares will exceed
Though they allow no cause, for if thou be
So truly happy as divinitie
Declares the blessed transmigration, then
Twere sinfull griefe to wish thee here agen:
Thy death is my instruction, and thy blisse
The subject of my contemplation is.
Heaven inspire thy merit into me,
And I shall dye, to deserve life with thee.

An Elegie on his beloved friend Mr. Charles Rider, Student in the Art of Limning, or Picture-drawing.

If you can weepe, draw neere; but if your eyes
Deny to yeeld a liquid Sacrifice,
Laughter perplex yee, may you never be
Worthy to be preserv'd in memory
But amongst Fooles and Iesters, such as know
No season for their mirth, but will allow
Their idle jests, and their more anticke slights
On Funeralls as well as Brydall nights.
Here (you that have the magazin of teares)
Exhaust your thrifty fountains, he that weares
Black with an honest sorrow I advise
To ayde us in our (too sad) obsequies.
There is an Artist dead, who ist that can
Deny but hee's the friend of every man
That maks wise use of knowledg; he was rare
In limning decent Figures; his chaste care
Could nere permit his fancy to encline
To the rude draughts of lustfull Aretine:
But had his eyes beheld the silent feature,
Posture & face, of some excelling creature;
(Pure as her simple Beauty) such a one
Was patterne for his Pencill, or else none.
To be particular, I should appeare
Foe to my selfe, since each word claim's a teare;
But what my full fraught eyes deny to show,
Expect in some large booke in Folio.
His vertues are too many for to be
Composed in a weeping Elegie:
But he is dead, that all-devouring death
That scornes to give religious Monarchs breath
An houre beyond his limits, hath thought fit
To use his power on thee; may thy soule sit
In Angells habitations, while we
Deplore thy death, and blesse thy memory.
Since thou wert meritorious, I crave
That I may stick this Lawrel on thy grave,
Where if the bounteous heavens please to raise
Showres like my teares, twill grow a Grove of Bayes.

An Elegie on the death of a Male-child drown'd in Ice.

Blest Infant to thy Marble I am sent
By pittying fate and my owne discontent,
To be resolv'd, why (in thy budding youth)
Thou wert thus rudely ravish'd, that the truth
Vnto thy mourning friends I may relate,
Who with their tears thy cold urne consecrate.
How didst thou get thy ruine? what fate sent
Thy beautious body to that element
Devoures those it embraceth? couldst thou be
Flatter'd to hugge the infidelity
Of wanton Thetis? sure it was not so,
Twas thy owne Beauty wrought thy overthrow;
Shee was enamor'd of thee, and could finde
No way but this to sate her ravenous minde.
Shee did convert to Christall, for shee saw
None but thy beauty, could thy beauty draw:
For there thy eyes surpriz'd by their owne sight
Eclips'd each other, making midday, night:
Blacke night, worse waters, may yee ever be
Vs'd to make beauty blacke, so curs'd by me;
May never discontents or sorrowes rise
In greefe-afflicted bosomes, if their eyes
Bannish you thence, for when your floods are spent,
There shall not be a cause for discontent:
Rest peaceably (sweete boy) though to us dead,
Iove shall for thee exchange his Ganemed.

An Elegie and Epitaph on his Mistresse Fidelia.

Patience (the great Physition of the minde)
Hath lost his Art, for no balme can he finde
To give me cure, there is no Patience left,
It is a vertue which the gods bereft.
With my Fidelia, and since shee is gone
What good is left me, but distraction;
Yet in her name I doe a vertue finde
Charmes all my senses, tells my raging minde
Shee hath but left the earth for heaven to try
What throne the Gods prepare for shee and I.
Which having done, I then shall heare from her
By that supreame commanding Harbinger,
That summons Princes, Queenes, religious Kings
To cast off earth and put on Cherub's wings:
My soule thus charmed into sweete content,
Ile waite, and write thus on her monument.

The Epitaph.

An Epicedium on his Mistresse Arbella.

Yee are too quick, yee Pioners of death
To execute your charge, I have yet breath
Struggles within my labouring brest, to come
And sigh an hasty Epicedium
On my Arbella; Oh what stupid sleepe
Ceazes your faculties, you doe not weepe
Your selves to restlesse rivolets; my eyes
Must act alone Arbella's obsequies;
Doe you want common sense, how can you heare
Arbella nam'd (dead nam'd) and shed no teare;
Know you not how to weepe, pray looke on me,
Methinks each man should be a Niobe,
And teach me to be fluent: fall, oh fall
Like Aprill dew, for these are Scythians all,
And know not how to weepe unlesse the winds
Ravish their teares; they have no weeping minds:
But I am spent entomb, her now, yet stay,
For pitties sake banish the wormes away,
They will pollute her beauty; let them have
A wealthy banquet in some Gluttons grave:
Yet they may stay, for if they can descry
Her beauteous cheekes, they will by famine dye,
Rather then plucke those Roses, now growne white
As was her innocence (before the light)
Envied the lustre of her eyes, and sent
Her beauty to enrich a Monument:
Where (since her Saint-like essence is divine)
I will forget her Tombe, and fix a Shrine.