University of Virginia Library

On the Honourable the Countess Dowager OF GAINSBOROW, &c.

Embodied Vertue, Light of Humane Race,
Your Age's Glory and Your Sexe's Grace,
Whose Fair Example Vice it self might move
To be a Proselyte to Vertuous Love.
And ah! what Sinner could the Force oppose;
When Vertue from so strict a Beauty flows,
Beauty, that double Charms on Worth bestows.
Lately the World of Your Rare Wedlock rang,
And Angels of the Nuptial Concord sang,
When a Male Vertue equally was plac'd
With Yours, embracing and alike Embrac'd;
Two Souls in one Dissolving Rapture couch'd,
With the same Magnet Two blest Souls were touch'd;
So Just the Flame, so Equal the Desire;
As if One Soul two Bodies did inspire
Not with a Raging, but a Lambent, Fire.
This Mutual Friendship all admiring saw,
And Glorious Copies thence began to draw;
When ah! the Generous Heroe sank away,
Remorceless Death seiz'd the Illustrious Prey,
And left Your Single Light to gild our Day.
Thus when the shining Monarch of the Skies,
Below the Western Mountains faints and Dies;
Singly the silver Moon his Place supplies.
Ten thousand Luminaries round Her wait,
And silently adore Her Princely State:
Above them all the Beauteous Goddess goes,
And Gracious Beams on her Attendants throws:
The Gladsome World approve Her Empire well,—
And now scarce miss the Sun, That but so lately fell.