Faithlesse and fond Mortality!1
Who will ever credit thee?
Fond, and faithlesse thing! that thus,
In our best hopes beguilest us.
What a reckoning hast thou made,5
Of the hopes in him we laid!
For life by volumes lengthenèd,
A line or two to speake him dead.
For the laurell in his verse,
crape The sullen cypresse o're his herse10
For soe many hopèd yeares
Of fruit, soe many fruitles teares:
For a silver-crownèd head
A durty pillow in Death's bed.
For so deare, so deep a trust,15
Sad requitall, thus much dust!
Now though the blow that snatch him hence,
Stopt the mouth of Eloquence:
Though shee be dumbe e're since his death,
Not us'd to speake but in his breath;20
Leaving his death vngarnishèd
Therefore, because hee is dead
Yet if at least shee not denyes,
The sad language of our eyes,
Wee are contented: for then this25
Language none more fluent is.
Nothing speakes our griefe so well
As to speak nothing. Come then tell
Thy mind in teares who e're thou be,
That ow'st a name to misery.30
Eyes are vocall, teares have tongues,
And there be words not made with lungs;
Sententious showres: O let them fall,
Their cadence is rhetoricall.
Here's a theame will drinke th' expence,35
Of all thy watry eloquence.
Weepe then! onely be exprest
Thus much, 'he's dead:' and weep the rest.
VPON THE DEATH OF MR. HERRYS.[69]
A plant of noble stemme, forward and faire,1
As ever whisper'd to the morning aire,
Thriv'd in these happie grounds; the Earth's just pride;
Whose rising glories made such haste to hide
His head in cloudes, as if in him alone5
Impatient Nature had taught motion
To start from Time, and cheerfully to fly
Before, and seize upon Maturity.
Thus grew this gratious tree, in whose sweet shade
The sunne himselfe oft wisht to sit, and made10
The morning Muses perch like birds, and sing
Among his branches: yea, and vow'd to bring
His owne delicious phœnix from the blest
Arabia, there to build her virgin nest,
To hatch her selfe in; 'mongst his leaves, the Day15
Fresh from the rosie East, rejoyc't to play;
To them shee gave the first and fairest beame
That waited on her birth: she gave to them
The purest pearles, that wept her evening death;
The balmy Zephirus got so sweet a breath20
By often kissing them. And now begun
Glad Time to ripen Expectation:
The timorous maiden-blossomes on each bough
Peept forth from their first blushes; so that now
A thousand ruddy hopes smil'd in each bud,25
And flatter'd every greedy eye that stood
Fixt in delight, as if already there
Those rare fruits dangled, whence the golden Yeare
His crowne expected: when, (O Fate! O Time!
That seldome lett'st a blushing youthfull prime30
Hide his hot beames in shade of silver age,
So rare is hoary Vertue) the dire rage
Of a mad storme these bloomy joyes all tore,
Ravisht the maiden blossoms, and downe bore
The trunke. Yet in this ground his pretious root35
Still lives, which when weake Time shall be pour'd out
Into Eternity, and circular joyes
Dance in an endlesse round, again shall rise
The faire son of an ever-youthfull Spring,
To be a shade for angels while they sing;40
Meane while who e're thou art that passest here,
O doe thou water it with one kind teare.
VPON THE DEATH OF THE MOST DESIRED MR. HERRYS.[70]
Death, what dost? O, hold thy blow,1
What thou dost thou dost not know.
Death, thou must not here be cruell,
This is Nature's choycest iewell:
This is hee, in whose rare frame5
Nature labour'd for a name:
And meant to leave his pretious feature
The patterne of a perfect creature.
Ioy of Goodnesse, love of Art,
Vertue weares him next her heart.10
Him the Muses love to follow,
Him they call their vice-Apollo.
Apollo, golden though thou bee,
Th' art not fairer than is hee,
Nor more lovely lift'st thy head15
(Blushing) from thine Easterne bed.
The glories of thy youth ne're knew
Brighter hopes than his can shew.
Why then should it e're be seen
That his should fade, while thine is green?20
And wilt thou (O, cruell boast!)
Put poore Nature to such cost?
O, twill undoe our common mother,
To be at charge of such another.
What? thinke me to no other end25
Gracious heavens do use to send
Earth her best perfection,
But to vanish, and be gone?
Therefore onely given to day
To-morrow to be snatch't away?30
I've seen indeed the hopefull bud
Of a ruddy rose that stood
Blushing, to behold the ray
Of the new-saluted Day:
(His tender toppe not fully spread)35
The sweet dash of a shower new shead,
Invited him, no more to hide
Within himselfe the purple pride
Of his forward flower; when lo,
While he sweetly 'gan to show
His swelling gloryes, Auster spide him,40
Cruell Auster thither hy'd him,
And with the rush of one rude blast,
Sham'd not, spitefully to wast
All his leaves, so fresh, so sweet,
And lay them trembling at his feet.45
I've seen the Morning's lovely ray
Hover o're the new-borne Day,
With rosie wings so richly bright,
As if she scorn'd to thinke of Night;
When a rugged storme, whose scowle50
Made heaven's radiant face looke foule
Call'd for an untimely night,
To blot the newly-blossom'd light.
But were the rose's blush so rare,
Were the Morning's smile so faire,55
As is he, nor cloud, nor wind,
But would be courteous, would be kind.
Spare him Death, ah! spare him then,
Spare the sweetest among men:
And let not Pitty, with her teares60
Keepe such distance from thine eares.
But O, thou wilt not, can'st not spare,
Haste hath never time to heare.
Therefore if he needs must go,
And the Fates will have it so;65
Softly may he be possest
Of his monumentall rest.
Safe, thou darke home of the dead,
Safe, O hide his lovèd head:
Keepe him close, close in thine armes,70
Seal'd vpp with a thousand charmes.
For Pittie's sake, O, hide him quite
From his mother Nature's sight;
Lest for griefe his losse may move
All her births abortive proue.75
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
See our Essay for notice of 'Mr. Herrys.' In the Sancroft ms. the heading is 'An Elegie on Mr. Herris. R. Cr.' It offers these variations: lines 1 and 2, 'doest:' line 18, 'his' for 'he;' adopted: line 29, 'given' for 'give;' adopted: line 36, 'new' for 'now;' adopted from 1648: line 50, the ms. reads 'rugged' for 'ruddy;' adopted: line 58, 'ah' for 'O;' adopted: line 60, 'And let:' lines 70-71 added from the ms., where in the margin is written 'not printed.' G.