FUNERAL

She who hath carried thither new degrees
(As to their number) to their dignities;
She who, being to herself a state, enjoy'd
All royalties which any state employ'd;

For the made wars and triumph'd; reason fill
Did not o'erthrow, but rectify her will;
And she made peace, for no peace is like this,
That beauty and chastity together kiss:
She did high justice, for the crucify'd
Ev'ry first motion of rebellion's pride;
And the gave pardons, and was liberal,
For, only herfelf except, fhe pardon'd all:
She coin'd in this, that her impreffion gaye
To all our actions all the worth they have:
She gave protections; the thoughts of her breaft
Satan's rude officers could ne'er arreft,
As these prerogatives being met in oue
Made her a fovereign ftate, religion

Made her a church; and these two made her all.
She, who was all this all, and could not fall
To worse by company, (for she was still
More antidote than all the world was ill)
She, the doth leave it, and by death furvive
All this in heav'n, whither who doth not strive
The more becaufe fhe's there, he doth not know
grow.
That accidental joys in heav'n do
But paufe, my Soul! and ftudy, ere thou fall
On accidental joys, th' effential.
Still before acceffories do abide

A trial must the principal be try'd.
And what effential joy canft thou expect
Here upon earth? what permanent effect
Of tranfitory causes? Doft thou love
Beauty? (and beauty worthiest is to move)
Poor cozen'd Cozener! that he, and that thou,
Which did begin to love, are neither now;
You are both fluid, chang'd fince yesterday;
Next day repairs (but ill) last day's decay:
Nor are (although the river keep the name)
Yesterday's waters and to-day's the fame.
So flows her face and thine eyes, neither now
That faint nor pilgrim which your loving vow
Concern'd, remains; but whilft you think you be
Conftant, y' are hourly in inconftancy.
Honour may have pretence unto our love,
Because that God did live fo long above
Without this honour, and then lov'd it fo,
That he at laft made creatures to bestow
Honour on him; not that he needed it,

[this

But that to his hands man might grow more fit:
But fince all honours from inferiors flow,
(For they do give it, princes do but show
Whom they would have fo honour'd) and that
On fuch opinions and capacities

Is built as rife and fall to more and less:
Alas! 't is but a cafual happiness.
Hath ever any man t' himself affign'd
This or that happiness t' arreft his mind,
But that another man which takes a worse,
Thinks him a fool for having ta'en that course?
They who did labour Babel's tow'r t' erect,
Might have confider'd, that for that effect
All this whole folid earth could not allow,
Nor furnish forth materials enow;

VOL. IV.

ELEGIE Ș.

And that his centre, to raise fuch a place,
Was far too little to have been the base.
No more affords this world foundation
T' erect true joy, were all the means in one.
But as the Heathen made them feveral gods
Of all God's benefits and all his rods,
(For as the wine, and corn, and onions, are
Gods unto them, fo agues be and war)
And as by changing that whole precious gold
To fuch small copper coins they loft the old,
And loft their only God, who ever must
Be fought alone, and not in such a thrust:
So much mankind true happiness mistakes,
No joy enjoys that man that many makes.
Then, Soul! to thy first pitch work up again;
Know that all lines which circles do contain,'
For once that they the centre touch, do touch
Twice the circumference; and be thou such;
Double on heav'n thy thoughts on earth employ'd ;
All will not ferve; only who have enjoy'd
The fight of God in fulness can think it ;
For it is both the object and the wit.
This is effential joy, where neither he
Can fuffer diminution nor we;

'Tis fuch a full and fuch a filling good,
Had th' angels once look'd on him they had stood.
To fill the place of one of them, or more,
before;
gone
She whom we celebrate is
She, who had here so much effential joy,
As no chance could distract, much less destroy;
Who with God's prefence was acquainted fo,
(Hearing and fpeaking to him) as to know
His face in any natural stone or tree,
Better than when in images they be;
Who kept, by diligent devotion,
God's image in such reparation

Within her heart, that what decay was grown
Was her first parents' fault, and not her own;
Who, being follicited to any act,
Still heard God pleading his fafe procontract;
Who by a faithful confidence was here

Betroth'd to God, and now is married there;
Whofe twilights were more clear than our mid-day;
Who dreamt devoutlier than most use to pray;
Who being here fill'd with grace, yet strove to be
Both where more grace and more capacity
At once is given: The to heav'n is gone,
Who made this world in fome proportion
A heav'n, and here became unto us all
Joy (as our joys admit) effential.

But could this low world joys effential touch,
Heav'n's accidental joys would pass them much.
How poor and lame must then our cafual be?
If thy prince will his fubjects to call thee
My Lord, and this do fwell thee, thou art then,
By being greater, grown to be lefs man.
When no physician of redress can speak,
A joyful cafual violence may break
A dangerous apoftem in thy breast,

And whilst thou joy'st in this the dangerous rest,
The bag may rife up, and fo ftrangle thee.
Whate'er was cafual may ever be.

What should the nature change? or make the same
Certain, which was but cafual, when it came ?

F

EPICEDES AND OBSEQUIES

UPON THE DEATHS OF SUNDRY PERSONAGES.

AN ELEGY

ON THE

UNTIMELY DEATH OF THE INCOMPARABLE PRINCE HENRY,

Look to me, Faith! and look to my faith, God,
For both my centres feel this period.
Of weight one centre, one of greatness, is,
And reafon is that centre, faith is this;

For into our reafon flow, and there do end,
All that this natural world doth comprehend;
Quotidian things, and equidistant hence,
Shut in for man in one circumference;
But for th' enormous greatneffes which are
So difproportion'd and so angular,
As is God's effence, place, and providence,
Where, how, when, what, fouls do departed
hence:

These things (eccentric elfe) on faith do strike;
Yet neither all nor upon all alike;
For Reafon, put t' her beft extenfion,
Almost meets Faith, and makes both centres one;
And nothing ever came fo near to this
As contemplation of that Frince we mifs;
For all that Faith might credit, mankind could,
Reason still seconded, that this Prince would,

then least moving of the centre make,

On neighbour states, which knew not why to
wake,

Till he discover'd what ways he would take;
For whom what princes angled, when they try'd
Met a torpedo, and were stupify'd;

And others' studies, how he would be bent,
Was his great father's greatest instrument,
And activ'ft fpirit, to convey and tie
This foul of peace unto Chriftianity?

Was it not well believ'd that he would make
This general peace th' eternal overtake,
And that his times might have stretcht out fo far
As to touch those of which they emblems are?
For to confirm this juft belief, that now
The laft days came, we saw heav'n did allow
That, but from his aspect and exercise,
In peaceful times rumours of wars should rife.
But now this faith is herefy, we must
Still stay, and vex our great grandmother Duft.
Oh! is God prodigal? Hath he spent his store
Of plagues on us, and only now, when more
Would eafe us much, doth he grudge mifery,

More than if whole hell belch'd, the world to And will not let's enjoy our curfe, to die?

shake,

What must this do, centres distracted fo,
That we fee not what to believe or know?
Was it not well believ'd till now that he,
hole reputation was an extafy,..

As for the earth, thrown loweft down of all,
'Twere an ambition to defire to fall;
So God, in our desire to die, doth know
Our plot for cafe, in being wrecched fo;
Fij

As bodies change, and as I do not wear
Thofe fpirits, humours, blood, I did last year;
And, as if on a stream I fre miné eye,
That drop which I look'd on is prefently
Paht with more waters from my fight, and gone;
So in this fea of virtues can no one
Be infifted on. Virtues as rivers pafs,

Yet ftill remains that virtuous man there was
And as if man feed on man's flesh, and fo
Part of his body to another owe,
Yet at the last two perfe& bodies rise,
Because God knows where every atom lies;
So if one knowledge were made of all thofe
Who knew his minutes well, he might difpofe
His virtues into names and ranks; but I
Should injure Nature, Virtue, and Destiny,
Should I divide and difcontinue fo
Virtue, which did in one entireness grow:
For as he that should fay fpirits are fram'd
Of all the pureft parts that can be nam'd,
Honours not fpirits half fo much as he
Which fays they have no parts but fimple be;
So is 't of virtue; for a point and one
Are much entirer than a million.

And had Fate meant t' have had his virtues told,
It would have let him live to have been old :
So then that virtue in feafon, and then this,
We might have feen and said that now he is
Witty, now wife, now temperate, now juft.
In good fhort lives virtues are fain to thrust,
And to be fure betimes to get a place,

When they would exercife back time and space.
So was it in this perfon, forc'd to be,
For lack of time, his own epitome;
So to exhibit in few years as much

As all the long-breath'd chroniclers can touch.

As when an angel down from heav'nth fly,
Our quick thought cannot keep him company;
We cannot think now he is at the fun,

Now through the moon, now through the air doth

run;

Yet when he's come we know he did repair
To all 'twixt heav'n and earth, fun, moon, and air;
And as this angel in an instant knows,
And yet we know this fudden knowledge grows
By quick amaffing feveral forms of things
Which he fucceffively to order brings,
When they, whofe flow-pac'd lame thoughts can-
not go

So faft as he, think that he doth not fo;
Juft as a perfect reader doth not dwell
On every fyllable, nor stay to spell,
Yet without doubt he doth diftin&tly fee,
And lay together every A and B;

So in fhort-liv'd good men's not understood
Each feveral virtue, but the compound good;
For they all virtue's paths in that pace tread,
As angels go and know, and as men read.
O! why should then these men, thefe lumps of
balm,

Sent hither the world's tempeft to becalm,
Before by deeds they are diffus'd and spread,
And to make us alive themselves be dead?
O Soul! O Circle! why fo quickly be

Since one foot of thy compass still was plac'd
In heav'n, the other might fecurely have pac'd
In the most large extent through every path
Which the whole world, or man, th' abridgement,
hath.

Thou knoweft that though the tropic circles have
(Yea, and thofe fmall ones which the poles engrave)
All the fame roundnefs, evennefs, and all
The endleffnefs of th' equinoctial,

Yet when we come to measure distances,
How here, how there, the fun affected is,
When he doth faintly work, and when prevail,
Only great circles then can be our scale;
So though thy circle to thyself exprefs
All tending to thy endless happiness,
And we, by our good ufe of it, may try
Both how to live well (young) and how to die;
Yet fince we must be old, and age endures
His torrid zone at court and calentures,
Of hot ambition, irreligion's ice,
Zeal's agues, and hydroptic avarice,
(Infirmities which need the fcale of truth,
As well as luft and ignorance of youth)
Why didft thou not for thefe give med'cines too,
And by thy doing tell us what to do?
Though as fmall pocket-clocks, whofe every wheel
Doth each mifmotion and diftemper feel,
Whofe hands get fhaking palfies and whofe ftring
(His finews) flackens, and whofe foul, the spring,
Expires or languifhes; whofe pulfe, the fly,
Either beats not, or beats unevenly;

Whofe voice, the bell, doth rattle or grow dumb,
Or idle as men which to their laft hour come;
If thefe clocks be not wound, or be wound ftill,
Or be not fet, or fet at every will;

So youth is eafieft to deftru&tion,
If then we follow all, or follow none.

Yet as in great clocks which in fteeples chime,
Plac'd to inform whole towns t' employ their time,
An error doth more harm, being general,
When small clocks faults only on th' wearer fall;
So work the faults of age, on which the eye
Of children, fervants, or the state, rely.
Why wouldft not thou then, which hadft fuch a
foul,

A clock fo true as might the fun controul;
And daily hadft from him who gave it thee
Inftructions, fuch as it could never be
Disorder'd, ftay here, as a general
And great fun-dial, to have fet us all?
Oh! why wouldest thou be an instrument
'To this unnatural courfe? or why confent
To this not miracle but prodigy,

That when the ebbs longer than flowings be,
Virtue, whose flood did with thy youth begin,
Should fo much fafter ebb out than flow in?
Though her flood were blown in by thy first.
breath,

All is at once funk in the whirlpool death;
Which word I would not name, but that I fee
Death, elfe a defert, grown a court by thee.
Now I am fure that if a man would have
Good company, his entry is a grave.
Methinks all cities now but ant-hills be,

Thy ends, thy birth, and death, clos'd up in thee? Where, when the feveral labourers I fee