| |
| MUST 1 Noble Hastings Immaturely die, | |
| (The Honour of his ancient Family?) | |
| Beauty and Learning thus together meet, | |
| To bring a Winding for a Wedding-sheet? | |
| Must Vertue prove Death’s Harbinger? Must She, | 5 |
| With him expiring, feel Mortality? | |
| Is Death (Sin’s wages) Grace’s now? shall Art | |
| Make us more Learned, only to depart? | |
| If Merit be Disease, if Vertue Death; | |
| To be Good, Not to be, who’d then bequeath | 10 |
| Himself to Discipline? Who’d not esteem | |
| Labour a Crime, Study self-murther deem? | |
| Our Noble Youth now have pretence to be | |
| Dunces securely, Ign’rant healthfully. | |
| Rare Linguist! whose Worth speaks it self; whose Praise, | 15 |
| Though not his Own, all Tongues Besides do raise: | |
| Then Whom Great Alexander may seem less, | |
| Who conquer’d Men, but not their Languages. | |
| In his Mouth Nations speak; 2 his Tongue might be | |
| Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy. | 20 |
| His native Soyl was the four parts o’ th’ Earth; | |
| All Europe was too narrow for his Birth. | |
| A young Apostle; and (with rev’rence may | |
| I speak ’it) 3 inspir’d with gift of Tongues, as They. | |
| Nature gave him, a Childe, what Men in vain | 25 |
| Oft strive, by Art though further’d, to obtain. | |
| His body was an Orb, his sublime Soul | |
| Did move on Vertue’s and on Learning’s pole: | |
| Whose Reg’lar Motions better to our view, | |
| Then Archimedes Sphere, the Heavens did shew. | 30 |
| Graces and Vertues, Languages and Arts, | |
| Beauty and Learning, fill’d up all the parts. | |
| Heav’ns Gifts, which do, like falling Stars, appear | |
| Scatter’d in Others; all, as in their Sphear, | |
| Were fix’d and 4 conglobate in’s Soul, and thence | 35 |
| Shone th’row his Body with sweet Influence; | |
| Letting their Glories so on each Limb fall, | |
| The whole Frame render’d was Celestial. | |
| Come, learned Ptolomy, and tryal make, | |
| If thou this Hero’s Altitude canst take; | 40 |
| But that transcends thy skill; thrice happie all, | |
| Could we but prove thus Astronomical. | |
| Liv’d Tycho now, struck with this Ray, (which shone | |
| More bright i’ th’ Morn then others Beam at Noon) | |
| He’d take his Astrolabe, and seek out here | 45 |
| What new Star ’t was did gild our Hemisphere. | |
| Replenish’d then with such rare Gifts as these, | |
| Where was room left for such a Foul Disease? | |
| The Nations sin hath drawn that Veil which shrouds | |
| Our Day-spring in so sad benighting Clouds. | 50 |
| Heaven would no longer trust its Pledge; but thus | |
| Recall’d it; rapt its Ganymede from us. | |
| Was there no milder way but the Small Pox, | |
| The very filth’ness of Pandora’s Box? | |
| So many Spots, like næves, our Venus 5 soil? | 55 |
| One Jewel set off with so many a Foil? | |
| Blisters with pride swell’d, which th’row’s flesh did sprout | |
| Like Rose-buds, stuck i’ th’ Lilly-skin about. | |
| Each little Pimple had a Tear in it, | |
| To wail the fault its rising did commit: | 60 |
| Who, Rebel-like, with their own Lord at strife, | |
| Thus made an Insurrection ’gainst his Life. | |
| Or were these Gems sent to adorn his Skin, | |
| The Cab’net of a richer Soul within? | |
| No Comet need foretel his Change drew on, | 65 |
| Whose Corps might seem a Constellation. | |
| O had he di’d of old, how great a strife | |
| Had been, who from his Death should draw their Life? | |
| Who should by one rich draught become whate’er | |
| Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæsar, were: | 70 |
| Learn’d, Vertuous, Pious, Great, and have by this | |
| An Universal Metempsuchosis. | |
| Must all these ag’d Sires in one Funeral | |
| Expire? All die in one so young, so small? | |
| Who, had he liv’d his life out, his great Fame | 75 |
| Had swoln ’bove any Greek or Romane name? | |
| But hasty Winter, with one blast, hath brought | |
| The hopes of Autumn, Summer, Spring, to nought. | |
| Thus fades the Oak i’ th’ sprig, i’ th’ blade the Corn; | |
| Thus, without Young, this Phœnix dies, new born. | 80 |
| Must then old three-legg’d gray-beards, with their Gout, | |
| Catarrhs, Rheums, Aches, live three Ages out? | |
| Times Offal, onely fit for th’ Hospital, | |
| Or t’ hang an 6 Antiquaries room withal; | |
| Must Drunkards, Lechers, spent with Sinning, live | 85 |
| With such helps as Broths, Possits, Physick give? | |
| None live but such as should die? Shall we meet | |
| With none but Ghostly Fathers in the Street? | |
| Grief makes me rail; Sorrow will force its way; | |
| And Show’rs of Tears, Tempestuous Sighs best lay. | 90 |
| The Tongue may fail; but over-flowing Eyes | |
| Will weep out lasting streams of Elegies. | |
| But thou, O Virgin-widow, left alone, | |
| Now thy Beloved, Heaven-ravisht Spouse is gone, | |
| (Whose skilful Sire in vain strove to apply | 95 |
| Med’cines, when thy Balm was no remedy) | |
| With greater than Platonick love, O wed | |
| His Soul, tho’ not his Body, to thy Bed: | |
| Let that make thee a Mother; bring thou forth | |
| Th’ Ideas of his Vertue, Knowledge, Worth; | 100 |
| Transcribe th’ Original in new Copies: give | |
| Hastings o’ th’ better part: so shall he live | |
| In’s Nobler Half; and the great Grandsire be | |
| Of an Heroick Divine Progenie: | |
| An Issue which t’ Eternity shall last, | 105 |
| Yet but th’ Irradiations which he cast. | |
| Erect no Mausolæums: for his best | |
| Monument is his Spouses Marble brest. | |
