HALLOW the threshold, crown the posts anew!
The day shall have its due.
Twist all our victories into one bright wreath,
On which let honour breathe;
Then throw it round the temples of our Queen!
’Tis she that must preserve those glories green.
When greater tempests than on sea before
Received her on the shore;
When she was shot at ‘for the King’s own good’
By legions hired to blood;
How bravely did she do, how bravely bear!
And show’d, though they durst rage, she durst not fear.
Courage was cast about her like a dress
Of solemn comeliness:
A gathered mind and an untroubled face
Did give her dangers grace:
Thus, arm’d with innocence, secure they move
Whose highest ‘treason’ is but highest love.
On a Virtuous Young Gentlewoman that died suddenly
SHE who to Heaven more Heaven doth annex,
Whose lowest thought was above all our sex,
Accounted nothing death but t’ be reprieved,
And died as free from sickness as she lived.
Others are dragg’d away, or must be driven,
She only saw her time and stept to Heaven;
Where seraphims view all her glories o’er,
As one return’d that had been there before.
For while she did this lower world adorn,
Her body seem’d rather assumed than born;
So rarified, advanced, so pure and whole,
That body might have been another’s soul;
And equally a miracle it were
That she could die, or that she could live here.
JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE
1612-1650