Fons Lachrymarum or a fountain of tears: From whence doth flow Englands Complaint, Jeremiahs Lamentations paraphras'd with Divine Meditations and an elegy Upon that Son of Valor Sir Charles Lucas. Written by John Quarles |
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Pax una triumpha est.
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 | Fons Lachrymarum |  |
Pax una triumpha est.
Peace
is the life of happiness, and Strife
A living Death unto a dying Life:
Envy's the child of Strife, and pregnant Peace
Is an indulgent Mother, whose encrease
Adorns the earth: Peace is a Turtle Dove,
Compos'd of nothing but the purest Love.
What's martial triumph, but a little blaze
Which now aspires, and by and by decays?
What triumph is t, to see the shivered bones
Of breathless men, and hear th'impetuous groans
Of those whose feeble tongues invite a death
To dispossess them of their loathed breath?
Sad are th'effects of War, and yet this age
Esteems not Peace, but lets Contention rage
Into a madness: Oh unhappy State,
Where Strife's desir'd too soon, & Peace too late!
Soul-calming Peace, and heart-corroding Strife
Live here like Factors, both for death and life.
It is a sacred Jubile, to hear
Soft-breathing Peace, chanting in every ear
Rare strains of Heav'n-bred raptures, which express
Full Diapasons of our happiness:
But 'tis a dying life to see, that bliss
Should, by a hellish metamorphosis,
Be thus transhap'd to Strife: There's no prevention,
Abused Peace perverts into contention.
A living Death unto a dying Life:
Envy's the child of Strife, and pregnant Peace
Is an indulgent Mother, whose encrease
Adorns the earth: Peace is a Turtle Dove,
Compos'd of nothing but the purest Love.
What's martial triumph, but a little blaze
Which now aspires, and by and by decays?
What triumph is t, to see the shivered bones
Of breathless men, and hear th'impetuous groans
Of those whose feeble tongues invite a death
To dispossess them of their loathed breath?
Sad are th'effects of War, and yet this age
Esteems not Peace, but lets Contention rage
Into a madness: Oh unhappy State,
Where Strife's desir'd too soon, & Peace too late!
97
Live here like Factors, both for death and life.
It is a sacred Jubile, to hear
Soft-breathing Peace, chanting in every ear
Rare strains of Heav'n-bred raptures, which express
Full Diapasons of our happiness:
But 'tis a dying life to see, that bliss
Should, by a hellish metamorphosis,
Be thus transhap'd to Strife: There's no prevention,
Abused Peace perverts into contention.
And can the Diamond of Amitie,
If once dissevered in pieces, be
Compos'd again? Experience makes us find,
'Tis quickly broken, but not quickly joyn'd.
Oh Peace! Can we expect thy blest return,
If we, whose flaming envies dayly burn
Thy name within the Ætnas of our brests,
Do make thee subject to our vile detests?
'Tis often seen, Cantharides do dwell
Upon the fairest rose, whose pleasing smell
Delights the sense: It may be truly said,
Envy, that base Cantharides, hath laid
It self upon the Roses of our Peace,
And rob'd us of a liberal encrease.
Have not our eyes in former times beheld
The fuits of Peace? have not our Souls been fill'd
With heavenly pleasures, and our grasping hands
Gather'd the plenty of our peaceful Lands?
Did not the painful husbandman bestow
His labors with a cheerful brow, and sow
The often-furrowed earth? But now, ah now,
Intruding Mars molests the active plough!
And have we not by sad experience found,
Contentious Mars ploughs bodies, & not ground?
Oh miserable tillage! This will bring
A bloody Harvest, and as bad a Spring.
See smiling Bacchus, with his brim-fill'd bowls,
Would tempt us to carouze away our Souls.
Mars with a palled look proclaims an end
To all our pastimes: Sorrow knows no friend.
Mars thunders, Bacchus smiles, and Cupid cries,
Envy survives, Truth pines, and Friendship dyes.
Peace flies her Country, and with discontent
Bemoans our sorrows, and her banishment.
And thus we tumble in our own confusion,
A bad beginning finds a bad conclusion.
If once dissevered in pieces, be
Compos'd again? Experience makes us find,
'Tis quickly broken, but not quickly joyn'd.
Oh Peace! Can we expect thy blest return,
If we, whose flaming envies dayly burn
Thy name within the Ætnas of our brests,
Do make thee subject to our vile detests?
'Tis often seen, Cantharides do dwell
Upon the fairest rose, whose pleasing smell
Delights the sense: It may be truly said,
Envy, that base Cantharides, hath laid
It self upon the Roses of our Peace,
And rob'd us of a liberal encrease.
Have not our eyes in former times beheld
The fuits of Peace? have not our Souls been fill'd
With heavenly pleasures, and our grasping hands
Gather'd the plenty of our peaceful Lands?
Did not the painful husbandman bestow
His labors with a cheerful brow, and sow
98
Intruding Mars molests the active plough!
And have we not by sad experience found,
Contentious Mars ploughs bodies, & not ground?
Oh miserable tillage! This will bring
A bloody Harvest, and as bad a Spring.
See smiling Bacchus, with his brim-fill'd bowls,
Would tempt us to carouze away our Souls.
Mars with a palled look proclaims an end
To all our pastimes: Sorrow knows no friend.
Mars thunders, Bacchus smiles, and Cupid cries,
Envy survives, Truth pines, and Friendship dyes.
Peace flies her Country, and with discontent
Bemoans our sorrows, and her banishment.
And thus we tumble in our own confusion,
A bad beginning finds a bad conclusion.
| Fons Lachrymarum | |