According to two MSS.(RP31 and H40) the Elegie, 'Death be not proud', was written by Lady Bedford herself on the death of her cousin. It is much simpler and sincerer in tone than Donne's or Beaumont's, but the tenor of the thought seems to connect it with the Elegie on Mris Boulstred, 'Death I recant'. The same MSS. contain the following Epitaph uppon the Ladye Markham, which shows that she was a widow when she died:
A Mayde, a Wyfe shee liv'd, a Widdowe dy'd:
Her vertue, through all womans state was varyed.
The widdowes Bodye which this vayle doth hide
Keepes in, expecting to bee justlie [highly H40] marryed,
When that great Bridegroome from the cloudes shall call
And ioyne, earth to his owne, himself to all.
l. 7. Then our land waters, &c. 'That hand which was wont to wipe all teares from all our eyes, doth now but presse and squeaze us as so many spunges, filled one with one, another with another cause of teares. Teares that can have no other banke to bound them, but the declared and manifested will of God: For, till our teares flow to that heighth, that they might be called a murmuring against the declared will of God, it is against our Allegiance, it is Disloyaltie, to give our teares any stop, any termination, any measure.' Sermons 50. 33. 303: On the Death of King James.
Page 280, l. 11. And even these teares, &c.: i.e. the
Teares which our Soule doth for her sins let fall,