University of Virginia Library

Elegiack Poems.

An Elegie on the Death of Mr. John Steward.

If a sad Stranger may presume to mourn,
And build (in Verse) an Altar ore an Urn,
If Tears that com from Heart-instructed Eyes
Appear no despicable Sacrifice;
If you'll conceive Sorrow can keep her Court
In Souls that have the Cause but by Report,
Or if the loss of virtue you believe
Can make its Lover (though a Stranger) grieve:
Admit my Wet Oblation which imparts
Something that shews th' effects of mourning Hearts.
You who have had no Tears for your own Crimes,
And cannot vent a Sigh for these sad Times,
Within whose juiceless Eyes was never seen,
Drops but proceeding from a tickled Spleen:
And you who (valor-harden'd) never cou'd
Bestow one stream to see a Sea of Bloud,
Though of your Sons, or Brothers; Come to me
Ile teach you true grief in this Elegie,
Steward is dead, a man whom Truth, and Fame
With Virtue, ever shall imbalm his Name;
Crave although Young, who in his heart did prize
Learning, and yet not wittier than wise;
Religious without Faction, and could be
Courteous without the Court Hypocrisie,
Just to his Friends, not Hatefull to his Foes,
For he had none, though Virtue seldom goes
By Envie unattended; He was one
In whom appear'd much of Perfection,
But Death (the due of Nature) must be paid,
Beauty, and Strength must in a Grave be laid:
So hasty and unwilling to defer
The time, is our great grim, Commissioner;
Then let us mourn, let our true Sorrow swim,
That he is not with us, or we with him:
'Tis Good to mourn for Good, as to Regard,
Or pity, is a kinde of a Reward:
His latest precious Breathings, had respect
To nothing more than divine Dialect,
Which he committed to his mourning Friends;
In Exhortations for their better Ends
Unlocks his breast, which onely could express
Aspiring Prayers, and pious pensiveness;
Thus like a Traveller (that will not stray
To any talk, but's journey, and his way)
Our Peregrine discourseth, till at last
As Tapers, near their end give greatest blast,
He dies, and all the Duty I can do
Is on his Herse to fix a Line or two.

The Epitaph.

On the Death of the most worthily honour'd Mr. John Sidney, who dyed full of the Small Pox.

Sidney is dead, a Man whose name makes surrows
In his Friends Cheeks, channel'd with Tears for Sorrows,
Within whose Microcosm was combin'd
All Ornaments of Body, and of Minde,
In whose good Acts, you might such vollumes see,
As did exceed th' extent of Heraldry;
Whose well-composed Excellencies, wrought
Beyond the largest scope of humane thought.
Indeed, within his Life's short little Span,
Was all could be contracted in one Man;
And He that would write his true Elegie,
Must not Court Muses, but Divinity.
He's Dead: But Death, I have a Speech, in vain,
Directed unto Thee, where I complain
Upon thy cruel Office, that could find
No way to part his Body and his Mind,
But by a fatal sicknesse, that confounds
The beautious Patient, with so many wounds;
Sure when thou mad'st his Fabrick to shiver,
Thou could'st not chuse but empty all thy Quiver.
What Man (to all odds open) in the Wars,
Dies with such a Solemnity of Scarrs?
Yet his great Spirit gives the Reason why,
Without that Number, Sidney could not die:
And therefore we will Pen it in his Story,
What thou intend'st his Ruine, is his Glory;
So when the Heavenly Globe I've look'd upon,
Have I beheld the Constellation
Of Jupiter, and on all parts descri'd
Th' illuminated Body stellified,
Sprinkled about with Stars, so that you might
Behold his Limbs and Hair, powder'd with Light:
This wee'l apply, that, though we lose him here,
His Soul shall shine in a Cælestial Sphere.

The Epitaph.

An Elegie on the lamented Death of the virtuous Mis. Anne Phillips, Dedicate to her Son and Heir Mr. Edmond Philips.

Religious Creature, on thy sacred Herse
Let my sad Muse ingrave a weeping Verse
In watry Characters, which nere shall dry,
Whil'st Men survive to write an Elegy:
Dull Brass, Proud Marble, and Arabian Gold,
(Though they tyre Time and Ruine) shall not hold
Their aged Letters half so long, as we
Shall keep thy living worth in Memory:
Obedience was thy study, Truth thy aim,
Wisdome thy worship, Fortitude thy fame,
Patience thy peace, and all good Eys might see
Thou did'st retain Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Within the holy treasurie of thy Mind,
Were the choise vertues of all Women-kind:
Nothing that had affinity with good,
But liv'd within thy Spirit or thy Bloud;
No costly Marble need on thee be spent,
Thy deathlesse Worth is thine own Monument.

Thoughts of Life and Death, written upon the occasion, ex tempore.

I never look on Life, but with a loathing,
When it is sterril, and conduceth nothing
To my Eternal Being; but when I
Find it devoted to the Deity,
To love my Neighbour, and obey that State
Which God hath made next, and immediate
Under his sacred Power; when I have will
To Forgive him that doth me greatest ill;
To calm my Passions, to content my Friends,
And do no Acts that savour of self-ends,
Then I love Life; but wanting this, I have
No joy, but to exchange it for a Grave.

An Epitaph on the Death of an Organist.

Within this Earth (a place of low condition)
Intomb'd, here lies, an exquisite Musician:
Living, he thriv'd by Concord, and agreeing,
Looking from all things, to Eternal being:
In Equal Rule and Space he lead his life;
A constant, honest, Consort to his Wife,
Much troubled Musick suffer'd such derision
By many, that began Points of Division:
He now, without controul, no question, sings
Eternal Anthems to the King of Kings.

An Epitaph on Himself.

An Epitaph on a Strumpet, buried at Graves-end, once at my landing there, to go to Canterbury.

We read, that Sacred Solomon would have
No nice distinction 'twixt a Whore and Grave
Since it is so, then now it may be said,
That heare a Grave within a Grave is laid:
She was no Sextons wife, yet now and than
Suspition said, she buried many a Man;
But now the Grave is dead, why then (my Friend)
The worst is past, Thou'rt Welcome to Graves-end.

An Epitaph on my worthy Friend Mr. John Kirk.

Reader , Within this Dormitory, lies
The wet Memento of a Widdows Eys;
A Kirk, though not of Scotland, One in whom
Loyalty liv'd, and Faction found no room:
No Couventicle Christian, but he Died
A Kirk of England by the Mothers side.
In brief, to let you know what you have lost,
Kirk was a Temple of the Holy Ghost.